The Cabrillo mole project is in phase zero.
City Engineer Bob Greenlaw gave the City Council an update project last week.
Greenlaw anticipated tenants in the mole in 2028.
He began his presentation to the Sept. 16 council meeting with an overview of the project.
The following are highlights from the presentation.
“So where we started was in 2022, and council members were involved during that,” Greenlaw said.
“We also had community input with our design intent documents,” Greenlaw said.
“The community had provided substantial funding to fund that design intent,” Greenlaw said.
“We put together a set of documents of what was the wants and needs of the community to make those functional spaces for what our new facility would be,” Greenlaw said.
“After that, we realized that once we went out and got that price, that we were short on funding. We were in the range of having about $10 million,” Greenlaw said.
He said the city got more funding, which he put at about $9 million extra.
“Then we realized that we needed to put together the RFP [requests for proposals] because we were going into a design build,” Greenlaw said.
“We went out for about 30 outreaches to contractors to try to put together this design build team because realize this is a very large project for the city to undertake $20 million somewhere in that range,” Greenlaw said.
According Greenlaw’s slide presentation, staff prepared request for proposal documents in 2024-2025.
According to Greenlaw, in May 2025 there was significant contractor outreach and new engineering estimates that put the cost of the project at $31-$42 million.
“There were four contractors that weighed in and with this design build team and it was going to be in the range of $31 to $42 million, with what we had designed with Hart Howerton,” Greenlaw said. (Hart Howerton is an architectural design firm.)
One of Greenlaw’s slides put this in May 2025.
“We realized at that point that we needed to rightsize the project,” Greenlaw said.
Available funding at that point was $17 million.
The project budget: $20 million.
Project goals, according to one of Greenlaw’s slides:
- Complete the project without putting Avalon into debt.
- Final building to be maintained by city forces.
- Accommodate growing passenger capacity.
According to Greenlaw, they used value engineering.
Greenlaw said the city wanted to make sure that the materials selected are not so specialized that city crews can’t maintain them.
Staff created ADA access throughout the facility.
They increased passenger queuing capacity.
They eliminated a second story.
They reduced the overall volume of the structure.
He said they created fully covered boarding areas. “We heard that from the community, that was one of the major wants,” he said.
“We want to make sure that we have the capacity for the increase in cross channel carriers if necessary and also the increase in cruise ship passengers if necessary,” Greenlaw said.
“We simplified the concourse area,” Greenlaw said.
The next part of the project that goes out for bidding is the utility installation from the Trailhead to the mole. “We’re going to be getting that done before the next visitor season,” Greenlaw said.
Getting the switching gear will take from 12 to 16 months, according to Greenlaw.
Temporary facilities will be by floats four and five, according to Greenlaw.
A taxi line will be set up alone the pavers along the sea plane ramp, according to Greenlaw.
“The taxis will actually be running on the pavers so that we don’t take any of the two-way road away,” Greenlaw said.
To get the taxis around safely, the city will put temporary markings at the location.
Avalon will buy temporary restrooms, flush toilets, that will be available for other uses after the Mole project is done, according to Greenlaw.
He described the project involved early collaboration between the city, the contractor, architect, and engineer.
