Empty slips by size
The Alamitos Bay Marina Rebuild Is Finally on the Coastal Commission Agenda!
Photo and article by Alfredo Fernandez
The ABM rebuild permit will go before the Coastal Commission for approval on January 13 at the Long Beach City Hall Council Chambers.
According to Mark Sandoval (Marine Bureau Manager)The key issue in our Coastal hearing will be the slip mix in the proposed design.
As Mark has said on numerous occasions
before, “we are changing the slip mix in ABM to match
current demand dynamics.
ABM was built at a time when a 40-
foot vessel was considered a very large vessel, and as a result it
was built with 23% 20-foot slips, 19% 25-foot slips and 22% 30-
foot slips. As a result, about 64% of the marina is currently 30-
foot and under.
In the past couple of decades, the dynamics in
the industry have changed with the advent of fiberglass hulls.
To underscore this, we have averaged 357 vacant 20 and 25-
foot slips over the past two years.
By no means are we attempting to eliminate all small slips,
but we need to find the correct slip mix to ensure that our
marina will remain full for the next 40-years or so. As you may know, we use a cost-recovery approach to setting
slip fees. If we are forced to build a marina that has vacancies,
there will be less customers to whom we spread operating
costs, and it will push slip fees up, which is a disservice to all
our customers.
In addition, if we are wrong in our projections
and build too many larger slips, and not enough small slips, we
can always put a smaller vessel into a larger slip, and generate
some revenue, but we cannot do the opposite, as we have seen
when we have hundreds of vacancies.”
The chart below shows the proposed slip mix
|
Slip Size
|
20
|
25
|
30
|
35
|
40
|
45
|
50
|
55
|
60
|
65
|
70
|
80
|
90
|
100
|
110
|
120
|
|
Proposed Total
|
165
|
242
|
245
|
312
|
368
|
112
|
133
|
4
|
37
|
0
|
12
|
5
|
4
|
4
|
2
|
1
|
|
Proposed %
|
10
|
15
|
15
|
19
|
22
|
7
|
8
|
0
|
2
|
0
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
|
Cumulative %
|
10
|
25
|
40
|
59
|
81
|
88
|
96
|
96
|
98
|
98
|
99
|
99
|
100
|
100
|
100
|
100
|
|