Burton Chace Park docks to be replaced

MARINA DEL REY— The aged docks next to Burton Chace Park will soon be restored after the county Board of Supervisors approved $15.5 million worth of alterations during a July 8 meeting.

Construction on Anchorage 47, which will include 11 docks with 253 boat slips, will begin in November. Reconfigurations will also include upgraded water, power and sewer structures.

“The new docks will enable us to accommodate a larger variety of vessels and the needs of modern boaters which are different than what they were decades ago,” said Carol Baker, Los Angeles County Beaches and Harbors spokeswoman.

The project will be completed in three phases and is expected to last until July of 2016, according to Baker.

“Some of the docks are offline completely, because of excessive wear and tear where the sea lions have gotten the best of them,” Baker said. “They needed to be not only replaced and rebuilt, but they also needed to be modernized. These are older docks and it was just time for them to go.”

The project will also include upgrades to the area’s adjacent boardwalk, the county-owned parking area and restroom, which adds about $3.2 million to the overall cost of the project.

“It was determined during the design phase that the existing boardwalk area, parking lot and restroom building serving Anchorage 47 and the existing Parcel 55 dock and landside improvements did not meet current building code requirements, and the county’s current standards for marina construction are needed to be upgraded as well,” according to a staff report.

Anchorage 47 will lose 77 slips, but new accommodations will better suit larger vessels and comply with ADA guidelines, Baker said. She added that there will be 98 spaces for boats measuring 20 to 25 feet in length, 82 spots for vessels 26 to 30 feet in length and 60 slips for 30-foot boats. The number of end ties will remain at 11.

“To have modern docks is going to be a huge benefit for the boaters,” Baker said. “Not only will they be ADA compliant, but they’ll have the latest electric, sewer and fire protection. It will make a huge difference.”

Recreational boaters may also be granted the option of relocating to county-owned docks in the marina, according to Baker.

“It depends how the phasing goes. It might be that we can move some of them to a different part of the anchorage,” Baker said. “But I don’t think that’s been determined yet because we don’t have a construction plan yet. We don’t have a contractor yet. Typically what happens in MdR when these projects came up, we work with the other marina managers to try to seamlessly relocate tenants.

A contractor for the project will be selected in August.