The White Rock Pier may be repaired, but there’s still plenty of work left to do to improve the iconic, 100-plus year-old structure to ensure it remains strong for decades to come.
That was the message that White Rock Mayor Darryl Walker and members of the Friends of the Pier fundraising committee delivered Wednesday – along with a cheque for $100,000 – in an effort to keep the pier-refurbishment efforts top of mind as the three-year anniversary of storm that damaged it approaches later this year.
The six-figure donation to the city – which was made by Friends members Linda Hensman, Bob Bezubiak and Stewart Peddemors – is the latest sum that the committee has donated for pier-repair efforts since the structure was badly damaged by a Dec. 20, 2018 storm.
The committee originally made a $2-million pledge to help repair the pier, which was split in two by the storm, and while Walker reiterated Wednesday that the initial repairs are finished and associated bills paid – the pier reopened in the summer of 2019, 250 days after it was damaged – the new phase of work includes plans to strengthen both the south and north ends of the pier.
That work, Walker explained, is to include replacing the creosote wood posts with steel-reinforced ones, while also adding concrete cross pieces – the same work that was done to the damaged middle section of the pier.
Walker said that the cost to complete that work was estimated to be “between $11 and $12 million” while also noting the estimate was a couple years old and could well be “north of that now.”
Money raised by the Friends of the Pier committee has been raised primarily through the sale of pier planks, which cost $1,000 apiece and once sold will be adorned with the donor’s name.
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