Wilmington finally getting its new waterfront after waiting for decades
Formal discussions for a recreational Wilmington waterfront began a long time ago — in 1987, when a $35,000 study was approved.
The idea was to bring commercial and recreational facilities to an area long over-burdened with the industrial by-products of the Port of Los Angeles.
No one thought it would all take so long.
Two significant projects eventually got done — the $2.5 million, 10,000-square-foot Banning’s Landing Recreation Center, which opened on the waterfront in May 2001; and the $55 million Wilmington Waterfront Park, completed in June 2011.
But it was on Thursday morning, Oct. 29, when perhaps the biggest project officially launched — at last.
Los Angeles port and city officials gathered with community members for the formal groundbreaking of a $71 million, 9-acre promenade that will include a community park, public pier and dock, public restrooms and a “green” roof, a playground and parking lots.
That and adjacent areas include plans for the development of picnic areas, elevated viewpoints, a pedestrian bridge and commercial areas.
“It took community members a long time,” Los Angeles harbor Commissioner Lucia Moreno-Linares, a 50-year Wilmington resident, said of the decades of lobbying and planning. “Some of them have passed on to a better life, that’s how long this project has been in the works.”
But in an estimated 28 months — by 2023 — a central piece of a brand new waterfront landscape and experience will be ready to open.
“People will be jogging, moms will be pushing strollers” through the area at the water’s edge, said Cecelia Moreno, The port’s Wilmington community affairs advocate, who also added there will also be birthday parties, concerts and festivals.
The promenade project was designed by Sasaki Associates Inc. and will involve realigning Water Street parallel to the existing railroad tracks. Also planned are street improvements that include new utilities, grading, paving, striping, lighting and landscaping.
The project is designed to bring public recreational space back to the residents who have endured many of the port’s industrial impacts for so long. The 9 square-mile community, part of Los Angeles, also is home to several refineries.
A community park will be developed adjacent to Banning’s Landing Community Center, considered the hub of the growing waterfront project, along with bicycle racks, public seating and drinking fountains.
“In a community that has been impacted by heavy industrial uses,” said LA City Councilmember Joe Buscaino, who represents the Harbor Area-to-Watts district, “today we fulfill the promise to bring greenspace, retail and entertainment to the waterline.”
The project, Buscaino added, will combine with the San Pedro waterfront development, now set to open in 2022, to create a “rising tide” in the community. Together, both have been branded as the new L.A. Waterfront.
Wilmington residents, the councilmember said, have been asking for the development for decades.
Funding comes from the port’s Public Access Investment Plan, established in 2015, which stipulates that 10% of port operating income annually goes to public access infrastructure projects.
Since 2005, the port has invested more than $600 million in public access projects and an additional $400 million is committed through 2025.
None of it was easy, especially for those community members who had struggled for decades to change Wilmington’s small stretch of industrial harbor waterfront.
It took “meetings, discussions, community coffees and late-night talks,” said port Executive Director Gene Seroka.
A major hurdle was getting a land swap with the LA city Department of Water and Power, which owned part of the land where two tanks also stood.
One tank is now in the process of being taken down.
“In 10 months, we will start seeing a transformation,” Moreno said. “In 28 months, we’ll be standing on a beautiful” waterfront.