Downtown Marinas have 'world class' rebuild

Downtown Marinas have 'world class' rebuild

by Anna Ossanna
Marina World March/April 2005

Shoreline and Rainbow Marinas in original configuration with over 1,800 slips.

Situated among trendy shops, restaurants and tourist attractions, the Shoreline and Rainbow Marinas in Long Beach, California, boast easy access to Catalina Island and sailing conditions that are 'practically perfect year round'. Known collectively as the Downtown Marinas, these centrally-located facilities host festivals and competitions ranging from Olympic sailing trials to Formula One auto racing.

To better stage world class events, the Long Beach Marine Bureau aims to recreate the ageing Downtown Marinas as world class facilities with state-of-the-art docks and well-appointed amenities. After seven years of dreaming, discussion, research and planning, on 3rd February 2005, the city of Long Beach began demolishing the first of 26 fixed wooden docks in order to replace them with a 1702-slip, single loaded ShoreMaster floating concrete dock system.

Demand for berth space outpaced supply in the early 1980s, when this southern California city built the municipal Shoreline Marina. As a result, "budgetary decisions were made because we could fill slips no matter what." explained Mark Sandoval, manager of marinas and beaches for Long Beach Marine Bureau. In the original configurations of Shoreline and nearby Rainbow Marinas, over 1800 double-loaded slips share power stations and phone lines, and extra details like landscaping were sacrificed. But after a mid-90s recession slowed demand, the Marine Bureau realised that, to remain competitive, the Downtown Marinas would need to be rebuilt.

Given the size and location of the facilities closing for construction would mean displacing almost 2,000 boaters and disrupting the city's tourism industry. To avoid this, the Marine Bureau decided to remain open. "We're going to do whatever we can to minimise the impact on our customers." Sandoval explained.

Coordination is critical to rebuilding a working marina of this magnitude, on time and on budget, with the least inconvenience to boaters and the community. To better achieve these aims, the Marine Bureau hired Concept Marine Associates (CMA) as the city's project manager. In addition to helping the Marine Bureau with goal clarification, system selection and marina design, CMA worked with city planners to devise the best methodology for this wide-reaching project. One of its first recommendations was a design-build approach.

Traditionally, municipal construction projects follow a simple bidding system where contractors compete to build a design predetermined by the project's 'owner'. Ina design-build, the designer and the builder are the same entity - a single point of responsibility - which reduces the potential for early conflicts that could derail the project.

Until recently, local policies were interpreted to require centralised management over publicly funded projects. This appeared to rule out a design-build approach for a $30 million project, which was being funded primarily through a loan from the California Department of Boating and Waterways (DBAW). However, in a fortunate conversation with a city engineer, Sandoval learned that this policy interpreation had changed, granting the Marine Bureau more control and, in turn, allowing project planners to use a design-build approach.

Together with CMA, the Marine Bureau fielded proposals, evaluating each based on the quality of dock system and the team's proven ability to manage installations of this scale. Project planners narrowed the field to concrete dock systems, preferred by 80% of the stakeholders with whom they spoke. No wave attenuation would be necessary due to a naturally-protected southern exposure and a series of rubble mound breakwaters. However, given the harbours' location at the mouth of the Los Angeles River, the dock system would need to withstand nine-foot tidal fluctuations, currents and high winds.

The city's proposal request specified a desire for single-loaded slips sized to accommodate today's larger vessels. This meant sacrificing over 70 berths but, commented CMA president Gordon Fulton: "Larger boats are a more permanent market." Because smaller craft can easily be removed and stored elsewhere, larger craft provide permanency that can help to ensure a 'recession-proof' marina.

Although the Marine Bureau and its project managers were familiar with the proposed systems, CMA consultants travelled to view and rate each example. In the end, the Marine Bureau selected the Connolly-Pacific Company's (CPC) five-member team, who would install a ShoreMaster Model 400 floating concrete dock system. Members of the selection team cited as deciding factors the perceived quality of ShoreMaster's product and CPC's good local reputation based on 80 years of general contracting experience.

Known well by the city's Marine Bureau, CPC created the Downtown Marinas' basin, drove the original pilings, and constructed and installed the existing wooden dock system in 1982. Two utility contractors on the CPC team - ADCO Electric and Advanced Mechanical Contractors - also contributed to the existing installation. Today's CPC team adds Tetra Tech, Inc., specialists in water-related engineering and environmental resources, and marine geotechnical engineering firm Fugro West.

Two significant differences distinguished the dock system proposed by the CPC team: ShoreMaster's unique, 'tested by the North Sea' floating concrete dock system, and the team's proposed design. Engineered to accommodte surface level changes resulting from wind and tidal forces, ShoreMaster's patented post-tension system minimises the impacet of stress on the concrete. The dock system's fifty-foot main walkway floats are joined by a post-tension tendon running through conduits moulded into the concrete sections, which are separated by polyurethane spacers. This design is claimed to isolate stress to the system's tendons and spacers, rather than transferring their damaging force to the concrete.

ShoreMaster's large float sections increase stability, and each dock section includes galvanised, epoxy-coated reinforcement and utlises a high strength concrete mix design to ensure durability and long life. The dock systems's concrete surface will have a non-skid broom finish with a smooth, picture frame edge. Corner fillets and decking around the pile guides will be constructed using Ipe Brazilian hardwood.

ShoreMaster test floats for the Long Beach project.

The design proposed by ShoreMaster and the CPC team offered an innovative solution to the difficult and expensive task of reconfiguring the double-loaded marina to singl berths. Because most of the Downtown Marinas' concrete piles were in sound condition, engineers from ShoreMaster and the CPC team collaborated to generate a design that would re-use most of the existing pile guides.

This reconfiguration was the design team's biggest challenge, according to ShoreMaster chief engineer and senior vice president, Dennis Tuel Jr. To functions properly, Tuel explained, piles must connect to the dock system at certain locations - no easy task, since the city needed to maintain minimum slip widths to meet DBAW regulations while also maintaining the walkway widths mandated by the Americans with Disabilties Act.

Tuel and the CPC team worked together to redesign the finger pier attachment system to allow greater flexibility. Whereas the previous attachment system functioned like pegboard, adjusting finger piers incrementally according to the number and spacing of holes, Tetra Tech principal engineer Fernando Pages explained that the newly-innovated attachment system can be "adjusted infinitesimally to fit any future size or demand of berth width."

Close collaboration amonth project engineers also led to the development of a corrosion-proof fire water system. Typically made of copper with galvanised fittings, such systems can corrode when thse dissimilar materials come into contact with salt water due to electrolysis. Instead, the CPC team created a corrosion-proof stainless steel water distribution system designed to maintain clearance from the water. And by designing a cost-effective loop electrical syste, the team virtually eliminated pool boxes along the main headwalk.

To facilitate the significant coordination required for the project, CMA recommended 'partnering'. Partnering was developed in the 1980s when excessive litigation led to reduced productivity in the construction industry. In partnered projects, stakeholders establish conflict resolution strateiges and commit to "put the project first," according to OrgMetrics president Sue Dyer, who helped to develop partnering in the United States through the Business Roundtable of the President's Council for Productivity Improvement.

Partnering also encourages communication with 'third party stakeholders', groups and individuals not directly involved in, but affected by, the project - and how often have the power to derail it. CPC president Ralph Larison said partnering emphasises "bringing in the local community to understand the [construction] process, so they understand how they'll be disrupted form normal activity." Project managers listened to the concerns of boaters, security personnel and other and used this feedback to mitiage inconveniences.

The Long Beach Marine Bureau hosted the project's initial partnering session on 22nd September 2004. Facilitated by Dyer, this kick-off meeting brough together project leaders representing the city's Marine Bureau, construction managers Concept Marine Associates, the five-company CPC team, and waterfront equipment manufacturer ShoreMaster. At this executive session, project leaders developed a common vision and established non-adversarial communication protocols to prevent and resolve conflicts.

The Long Beach Marine Bureau has, in many ways, broken new ground in its approach to the rehabiltiation of the Downtown Marinas. Marine Bureau Superintendent Douglas Parsons saw this rehabilitation as a vanguard of the southern California marina industry. Because many marinas in this region will soon rebuild, Parsons believed it was important to share the Marine Bureau's decision-making process with his professional colleagues in the California Association of Harbor Masters and Port Captains, wich he formerly served as president.

"That's our task," Parsons explained. "We brought [our collegues] in when we began, informed them of what we're looking at and said they can come observe." Parsons'appreciation for opening up the decision making process is evident in the project's design-build approach, its collaborative innovation and its collaborative innovation and its partnering process. Through Parsons passed away just two weeks before the project's February launch, he helped lay the groundwork for success in the marina renovation, and perhaps in many more to come.

*Anna Ossanna is a freelance writer specialising in corporate communications.