Bay commission approves $126 million pier project at Cal Maritime

VALLEJO— The 19-member San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission voted unanimously to approve a permit for a new pier to be built on California State University Maritime Academy campus.

The project is an expansion from the previous pier, built in 1996 to berthe Cal Maritime's current training ship, the Golden Bear. Construction of the pier is scheduled to begin in August and is expected to be completed by the end of 2026.

A larger pier and upgraded electrical system are required to accommodate the larger ship, which is being granted from the Department of Transportation Maritime Administration.

The ship is a National Security Multi-Mission Vessel, or NSMV. It is one of five commissioned by the Transportation Department to give to the State Maritime Academies, of which Cal Maritime is the last to receive its ship, according to Dinesh Pinisetty, dean of engineering.

Samar Bannister, current captain of the Golden Bear, said the pier and new vessel will help modernize how they educate mariners as well as increase national emergency response preparedness, as the ship can be repurposed for disaster relief. 

“Golden State will not only serve as a world class training platform, but will also function as an emergency response vessel capable of supporting high availability and disaster recovery operations anywhere Golden State is deployed,” Bannister said.

The Golden State is a 524-foot long and 88-foot wide electric ship powered by diesel generators, meaning campus’ current electrical system will require a significant upgrade to power it while docked. Pinisetty said that upgrade is in large part responsible for the $26 million increase to the initial $100 million budget.

The pier project would require dredging to accommodate new piles that the pier will be built on. Two additional mooring dolphins will be built east and west of the main pier to aid in tying down the ship.

Additional wave screens and a larger breakwater will be built to protect the campus’ shore line, where three new public picnic and viewing points will also be built as part of the permitting agreement.

The increased footprint of the pier would require more periodic maintenance dredging, which currently occurs every five to 10 years and was last completed in 2019. Additionally, dredged material from the work area will be “beneficially” reused.

The commission’s concerns were limited to minimizing the environmental impact of the project and its construction. 

Pinisetty said that underwater construction will be limited to the months of August to November to avoid impacting fish migration patterns. Concerning underwater eelgrass plant populations, Cal Maritime agrees to conduct pre- and post-construction surveys and mitigate its impacts. 

Eighty percent of the construction budget is set to be paid by the federal government and 20 percent by the state, Pinisetty said. He is “very optimistic” that Congress will support paying the cost increase and that the project will come to fruition, considering the national bipartisan support for the maritime industry.

One such effort is the SHIPS Act, set to pass through congress this year, which U.S. Rep. John Garamendi co-authored. 

Garamendi told the Vallejo Sun that “the SHIPS Act deals with the men and women who will build and man the ships. We're working very closely with Cal Maritime. The SHIPS act will provide funding for these academic opportunities.”

While there is a national push to revive the maritime industry, Pinisetty said that in order to accomplish it, “we need more boats, we need more instructors. If we can increase all those capabilities, we can keep growing. But these are the challenges that all state maritime academies are dealing with. It's not just Cal Maritime.”

Golden State’s capacity will double the amount of cadets that the current Golden Bear can take out to sea. For Merchant Maritime licensing requirements, at least two at-sea voyages are needed, and such a ship could increase the number of licensed sailors graduating the university each year. 

Kevin Motschall, architect and senior project manager in charge of leading the project, said Golden State is outfitted with numerous training spaces to include eight classrooms, a full training bridge, lab spaces, and an auditorium. “The ship has space to train up to 600 cadets at sea and provides students with a world class hands-on education,” he said.

Garamendi said that Cal Maritime, however, also needs to expand its recruitment efforts and specifically attract more local high school students. “Get off the island, get to the high schools. Tell them what the opportunities are,” he said. “They simply have to go recruit. It's the very best opportunity of any of the state schools. Put them on a bus!”

In response, Pinisetty said “yes, we have a few little numbers from our local student populations, like Solano County and Vallejo. But another challenge with that is math preparedness and high school preparedness in general. That's something that has to be improved with the local high schools.” 

Pinisetty has said that enrollment has been declining even before the Covid pandemic and that most students come from Southern California, with around 80% of them being men. He said that “some of their family members, or parents, or uncles have worked at a port,” in contrast with the local Bay Area population.

“We really want to be the academic piece that's required to produce the workforce with licensing, and we are very committed to it, because we see the critical need that our country needs, and also the national and economic security implications that this has,” Pinisetty said. “We want to be a strong partner to produce licensed mariners, and we just need to work together as a team.

I think we can totally take advantage of the traction that we are currently getting for the maritime sector in general.”

The Golden Bear will return from its current voyage to Hawaii in July and will leave 10 days later to be docked in Suisun Bay while the new pier is built.