Vancouver's Jericho Pier to be repaired, could open by next summer

Jericho Pier has been closed to the public since a storm battered it in January 2022 – but now, the Vancouver Park Board has approved a plan to repair it at a cost of $1 million.

Coming up with this plan hasn’t been straightforward.

A year ago, park board staff recommended demolishing the pier, and said building a new one would cost $25 million.

The board says this $1 million repair plan is a much cheaper compromise—and it's covered by insurance – though some were hoping for a longer-term solution.

“We’re trying to replace it as close to the existing model as possible,” Park Board Chair Brennan Bastyovanszky told CTV News in a Tuesday interview. “So, it should be able to return to the beloved shape, look, touch and feel and experience that everybody else has had and loves about that pier.”

And while technically the vote in favour at the park board was unanimous on Monday – Green Party commissioner Tom Digby abstained and had been hoping for a longer-term solution.

“This is one of the tough things when you’re an elected person, is like, do we want to do a band-aid patchwork to make it sustainable for maybe three years, five years? I mean, it’s going to get knocked off the pier again eventually, because the foundation is rotting,” Digby told CTV News on Tuesday.

In terms of a timeline, the park board is hoping the repair work will be complete by May 2025, with the hopes the pier can reopen in time for summer.