Port Pavilion at Broadway Pier, Design and Construction of a Modern Building on a 100-Year-Old Structure, San Diego Unified Port District, San Diego, California

Broadway Pier, a facility owned by the San Diego Unified Port District (District), is a 100-year-old facility that has been used to support a transit shed, general-purpose vessel berthing, military facility, cruise ships, and a place of public assembly (park). The pier structure is located at the foot of Broadway, the "front doorstep" to the city. The District sought to convert Broadway Pier to a modern, dual-purpose facility designed to meet the need for a place of public assembly in downtown San Diego and to support the city's burgeoning cruise ship industry. This paper will describe the unique marine engineering approach necessary for design and construction of a structural steel building on the historic pier. This paper will discuss challenging aspects of the project, including: ≤ Design and construction of a bonded structural deck overlay to increase pier deck capacity to support buses, trucks, forklifts and cranes. ≤ Global structural evaluation to determine the suitability of the pier structure to support the proposed building, mobile passenger gangway, ship berthing, mooring, and environmental loads. ≤ Below water testing of pier piling of undetermined flexural capacity. The testing apparatus was designed and implemented by engineer-divers. The testing resulted in substantial savings in retrofit costs for the District. ≤ Seismic retrofit of the pier using a base isolation system. ≤ Strategic placement of the building structure to not overstress the existing pier. Strengthening of the pier structure to resist building loads. ≤ Design of a steel-framed building using moment resisting frames, including the use of Vierendeel trusses and heavy, built-up, steel columns having cruciform configuration.