A drone view of the West Harbor project under construction on July 21, 2024. (Photo by Sean Dover)
West Harbor project. (Rendering courtesy Studio One Eleven)
Rendering of the future Bark Social site, a membership dog park, to be constructed at the northern end of West Harbor’s 42-acre development along San Pedro’s working waterfront. (Studio One Eleven, Long Beach)
Rendering shows the layout of what will be “more than a dog park” at the new West Harbor waterfront development in San Pedro. Bark Social, a unique brand launched just four years ago in the Mid-Atlantic, provides a membership venue offering drinks, food, remote work spaces with high-speed wifi for owners and a fenced romping space for their canines. The venue has signed a 10-year lease for West Harbor, with five-year add-on options, for the space in the north part of the waterfront with a front-row view of the working waterfront. (Studio One Eleven, Long Beach)
A covered patio is part of what will be Bark Social, the newest tenant signed on to be part of the 42-acre West Harbor waterfront development in San Pedro. (Studio One Eleven, Long Beach)
A line of hungry customers wait for the San Pedro Fish Market to open at the new location, just a few hundred yards from the original, in San Pedro on Friday, May 5, 2023. The restaurant, which operated at the Ports O’ Call Village closed March 3 and in record time opened this temporary location. Eventually the Fish Market, will have a home at the West Harbor Los Angeles Waterfront Development. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)
Steel frame of first West Harbor building goes up. (Photo courtesy West Harbor)
West Harbor steel frame of Building 1A rises on waterfront property in San Pedro. (Photo courtesy of West Harbor)
Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka speaking at the ground breaking ceremony for the second phase of the $85 million LA Waterfront Promenade in San Pedro on Tuesday, July 18, 2023.
This is the second and final phase of the promenade that will border the new West Harbor development.
(Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)
Frame for the first building at West Harbor waterfront development goes up in San Pedro. (Photo courtesy West Harbor)
Frame of first building in West Harbor waterfront development in San Pedro goes up. (Photo courtesy West Harbor)
Night-time rendering of newly redesigned amphitheater stage for San Pedro’s West Harbor waterfront development. (Rendering courtesy of Studio One Eleven)
A group of realtors was given a hard hat tour of West Harbor as Building A is close to completion and tenants will then be free to start making their own improvements to their spots in San Pedro on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Building A will have restaurants as well as an interactive entertainment venue. (Photo by Brittany M. Solo Press-Telegram/SCNG)
West Harbor Vice President Eric Johnson and Lee Williams, Port of Los Angeles Deputy Executive Director lead a group of realtors on a hard hat tour of West Harbor as Building A is close to completion and tenants will then be free to start making their own improvements to their spots
in San Pedro on Thursday, July 25, 2024. (Photo by Brittany M. Solo Press-Telegram/SCNG)
A group of realtors was given a hard hat tour of West Harbor as Building A is close to completion and tenants will then be free to start making their own improvements to their spots in San Pedro on Thursday, July 25, 2024. (Photo by Brittany M. Solo Press-Telegram/SCNG)
A group of realtors was given a hard hat tour of West Harbor as Building A is close to completion and tenants will then be free to start making their own improvements to their spots in San Pedro on Thursday, July 25, 2024. This open air second floor eating area will offer a unique dining experience. (Photo by Brittany M. Solo Press-Telegram/SCNG)
Lee Williams, Port of Los Angeles Deputy Executive Director talks to a group of realtors on a hard hat tour of West Harbor as Building A is close to completion and tenants will then be free to start making their own improvements to their spots in San Pedro on Thursday, July 25, 2024. (Photo by Brittany M. Solo Press-Telegram/SCNG)
A group of realtors was given a hard hat tour of West Harbor as Building A is close to completion and tenants will then be free to start making their own improvements to their spots in San Pedro on Thursday, July 25, 2024. This area overlooks where Building B will be located. (Photo by Brittany M. Solo Press-Telegram/SCNG)
West Harbor Vice President Eric Johnson and Lee Williams, Port of Los Angeles Deputy Executive Director lead a group of realtors on a hard hat tour of West Harbor as Building A is close to completion and tenants will then be free to start making their own improvements to their spots
in San Pedro on Thursday, July 25, 2024. In this image on the right is a mound of dirt that will soon be removed and construction can begin on the amphitheater. (Photo by Brittany M. Solo Press-Telegram/SCNG)
A group of realtors was given a hard hat tour of West Harbor as Building A is close to completion and tenants will then be free to start making their own improvements to their spots in San Pedro on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Building A will have restaurants as well as an interactive entertainment venue. (Photo by Brittany M. Solo Press-Telegram/SCNG)
With tentative plans now to add in a hotel, a Ferris Wheel or similar ride — and possibly a roller rink over the water — San Pedro’s waterfront developers hosted a hard-hat tour for area real estate representatives on Thursday, July 25
The occasion: Completion of the development’s first building, Building 1A.
It marks another milestone in what has been a longer-than-anticipated road to create an updated gathering spot overlooking the Port of Los Angeles’ Main Channel. A grand opening — which already had been pushed from 2024 to 2025 — now looks like it won’t happen until 2026, said Valerie James, vice-president of Business Development for West Harbor.
“There have been some hurdles,” she said, noting the planning process with the city of Los Angeles takes time.
But developers are finding ways to open up parts of the linear, 42-acre footprint along the waterfront — where Ports O’ Call Village once stood — going south from the Los Angeles Maritime Museum and a town square on Harbor Boulevard between Sixth and Seventh streets.
The so-called pop-up activities have included craft sales, community gatherings and the opening of the waterside promenade for casual walks and ship-watching. And the San Pedro Fish Market currently operates from a temporary space, awaiting a more permanent spot once the $170 million development gets closer to finishing.
Harbor Cruises also is onsite as one of the earliest tenants to sign, providing harbor tours. There is also Wheel Fun Rentals with wheeled surries and bikes available.
News that the first of what will be several buildings is essentially done — but still needs vendor work on individual spaces — was encouraging enough for local Realtor Lee Williams that he invited realtors from the Palos Verdes Peninsula to come take a look. The walk-through drew about 80 participants.
“I didn’t hear any negative opinions, which was pretty amazing,” said Williams, who also sits on the Port of Los Angeles Harbor Commission.
That’s not to say everyone in town loves the plan or design — particularly when it comes to the industrial, open warehouse-style architecture of the buildings that will house multiple vendors. When final plans were rolled out with those renderings, critics weren’t pleased with the sharp contrast from the homier Ports O’ Call Village it was replacing.
But developers and supporters within the community are banking that once it’s up and running, the new West Harbor will be a very big hit.
When the original Ports O’ Call was built, Lee said of the development that opened in the early 1960s, it was not uncommon for buildings to look like something from another part of the country.
“So we got a New England fishing village,” he said of the Port’s O’ Call design. “We’re not New England.”
It also was designed in an era when Disneyland was the biggest attraction in Southern California.
“I think the warehouses and the way this looks has an industrial feel,” Lee said. “It’s as authentic to San Pedro (and the port) as I can imagine.”
The walking tour, he added, seemed to win some folks over.
“I think some opinions were changed” with the tour, Lee said later. “People from ‘the Hill’ love to go to Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach,” he said. “The thought of having something right here — and not in the other direction — is enticing.”
James, who brought some 200 visitors from an L.A. tourism gathering down for a tour some months ago, said work also has begun to prepare the site on the north end of the development for a membership dog park, Bark Social, and a pickle ball vendor.
“We’ll see some soft (tenant) openings in 2025,” she said.
Also proposed for the southern-most point of the project is a 6,200-seat amphitheater, with plans for that expected to be released for additional public review later this year.
The penciling in of a 150-room hotel was a late addition and is still tentative and under consideration, James said. It would be built just south of the Maritime Museum on the northern-most portion of the waterfront parcel.
