GALVESTON, Texas (AP) - Galveston’s commercial fishing fleet has called Pier 19 home for decades. Like any place that’s been occupied for a long time, the docks have started to show their age.
The Port of Galveston now plans to give the pier a makeover.
The Galveston County Daily News reports the port plans to spend about $300,000 to repair broken wooden pilings and decks around the pier, officials said.
The proposed work is welcome news for the businesses that use the public docks.
“I’m glad they’re going to do it, it’s about time,” said Ed Schroeder, the co-owner of Galveston Party Boats, which operates out of Pier 19.
Pier 19 has been the home of the Mosquito Fleet, Galveston’s commercial shrimping fleet, since as early as 1850. Over the decades, the size of the fishing fleet has shrunk, but the pier remains home to shrimpers, seafood markets and charter boat companies.
Those businesses all still need safe docks from which to work.
In bid documents published in July, the port said 33 pilings at the pier need to be replaced because they’re broken or deteriorating. The repair work will replace pilings at 19 of the 33 finger piers at Pier 19, according to the documents.
The original deadline for contracting companies to bid on the work was July 24, however, that deadline has since been moved to Tuesday.
The effort to repair the docks, and keep them mostly the same, comes as the port is finalizing an ambitious vision for its future in the form of a new master plan.
Drafts of the port’s master plan have proposed major layout changes to some of its waterfront areas, including rearranging space for cargo on the port’s west end, building parking garages near the existing cruise terminal and building an entirely new commercial retail area around Pier 10.
What it doesn’t propose is changes to the area around Pier 19.
There are historical reasons for that. In the 1970s, the port considered building a new cargo dock at Pier 19 and moving the Mosquito Fleet to Pelican Island.
The talk drew objections from the shrimpers, fishermen and others who work at the docks, as well as groups such as the Galveston Historical Foundation. In 1977, a city referendum dedicated the pier to be used exclusively as boat slips or docks for commercial businesses.
To this day, the city’s charter mandates that the pier’s tenants and visitors “shall have free and full access” to the area and that the Wharves Board of Trustees is in charge of the maintenance and repairs of the area.
There have been no more efforts to remove the fleet from the Pier 19 area since the ’70s, though at times efforts to keep the area in good shape have lapsed.
The last major repair and renovation to the area came in 2000, when the port spent more than $2 million to renovate and expand the pier. That work ended up being tens of thousands of dollars over budget and took much longer than planned.
At the time, the delays annoyed some of the businesses that had to move their operations as work dragged on.
Officials with some businesses that operate out of Pier 19 said last month that they’d heard about the coming repairs.
When they begin, the repairs will be only the second time the port has made repairs to the docks since the 2000 renovations, Schroeder said.
The coming repairs might cause some small headaches, but they’ll be balanced out by the replacement of crumbling pilings, Schroeder said.
“I don’t think it’s anything that can’t be worked around,” he said.
The port plans to keep Pier 19 open during the repairs, according to the bid documents.
Port spokeswoman Cristina Galego and port director Rodger Rees did not respond to requests for interviews on Wednesday.
Once the bidding is closed, the port can negotiate with a contractor. A final agreement must be approved by the Wharves Board of Trustees before work can begin. The board’s next scheduled meeting is Aug. 27.
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Information from: The Galveston County Daily News, http://www.galvnews.com
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