Morro Bay Seafood Co., LLC is the new lease holder for the Fishermen’s Wharf fish offloading facility in Morro Bay. Photo by Neil Farrell
The Morro Bay Harbor Department has finalized a new lease for the Fishermen’s Wharf offloading dock, approving the new ownership group and continuing a key facility for the commercial fishing industry.
The City Council in March approved a new lease for Morro Bay Seafood Co., LLC for the wharf at 1231 Embarcadero behind the Dockside Restaurant. Morro Bay Seafood is owned by brothers, Garret Rose and David Rose.
The lease site, which has long been a main fish offloading facility in town had been in “holdover status,” according to a report on the new lease agreement. That’s a leftover status from the previous tenant, Morro Bay Fish Co., which had previously been called Santa Monica Seafood.
“On Nov. 21, 2023,” reads the report from Harbor Vitality Director Chris Munson, “Morro Bay Fish Company (Santa Monica Seafood) informed the City it was incurring significant operating losses at the Morro Bay fish landing facilities due to recent developments in the fishing industry and would be vacating the premises effective Dec. 31, 2023.”
Among the developments in fishing is a rockfish fishery closure from Jan. 1 to April 1; complete closure of salmon season for the third year in a row; and a lack of boats fishing the quota system, among others.
The report said to “maintain a fish wholesaler and avoid disruption to commercial fishing, Morro Bay Seafood Company (MBSC) was assigned the lease for the remainder of the term, expiring June 30, 2025. With the agreement MBSC was not required to pay rent during the short-term.”
That placed the lease on holdover, and the new tenants approached the City before the lease expired last June.
“They provided a proposal and notified the Harbor Department of their desire for a new lease prior to the expiration,” Munson said. “MBSC appears to be successful, and the owners are eager to maintain and expand commercial fishing in Morro Bay.”
Meanwhile a pair of fishing organizations stepped up to donate money to help with needed repairs to the wharf.
“In 2025,” Munson said, “the Harbor Department collaborated with the Central Coast Joint Cable/Fisheries Liaison Committee and the Morro Bay Community Quota Fund to pursue funding for repairs of the wharf under the lease site. The agencies granted $400,000 and $150,000 respectively, which will be used by the Morro Bay Commercial Fishing Organization for wharf repairs.”
The wharf was inspected by the City as part of a comprehensive review and evaluation of the City-owned facilities — docks, wharves, slips, seawalls and rip rap — that estimated the overall repairs at up to over $50 million.
The fishermen’s wharf (lease site 129W) has serious structural repair needs, including a deteriorating seawall and missing supports and piles, among other issues.
The two donations will lock in the future use for a couple of decades. “As a condition of the grants, the repaired lease site must be dedicated exclusively to commercial fishing use for a period of 20 years. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) outlining this commitment will be presented to City Council at an upcoming meeting.”
Despite having over half a million donated to the repairs, it won’t be enough.
“Associated Pacific Constructors provided an estimate for the repairs and organized the work into two priorities levels. Priority 1 repairs were quoted at $572,900 and Priority 2 at $235,000, plus $10,000 for inspection/monitoring for a total of $817,700.
“After $550,000 in grant funding, there are approximately $22,900 more needed to fully fund the Priority 1 repairs.”
According to Associated Pacific’s estimate, entitled Morro Bay Fish Company Roadside Pile Cap Repair and Pile Repairs, Priority 1 entails “all the major structural repairs necessary to return wharf to a structurally sound condition.”
Priority 2 is “wrapping existing piles to prevent future pile deterioration and replacing and or flipping deck boards that are structurally sound but show signs of wear.”
All the deck boards were replaced over 20 years ago when the wharf was operated by Driscoll’s Seafood and its owner, the late-Jerry Driscoll.
He made extensive repairs to the wharf and transformed what used to be a fish cutting shed, into a retail fish market and takeout café that’s been further improved into what is now called Dockside, Too, owned by Mark Tognazzini and his Family.
Associated Pacific did its own inspections and assessments of the damage. “Our inspections were primarily at low tide and diver visual inspection of submerged portions of piles.
“Generally, all the cross bracing will need to be replaced as well as piling that have 50% or more of deterioration.”
They have different ways to fix the rotten support piles. “Some will require pile encasements, which is cleaning the pile and encasing it in a fiberglass sleeve, filled with high strength grout. To protect the remaining piles over the long term it is recommended that they have the cleaning and HDPE pile wrap system. Fender piles are listed separately, since it is a commercial wharf, these should be addressed.”
Fender piles are used to soften the blow when a big fishing boat, laden down with fish in the hold, bumps the wharf as it comes in to dock.
It’s an involved job needing 12 pile stubs repaired; 19 pile encasements; wrapping 25 piles; 36 pairs of cross bracing replaced; and 25 linear feet (LF) of pile cap along the adjacent access roadway.
But at least the lease site will once again start to bring in some money to a Harbor Department that has been looking to increase its revenues for over a decade.
Under the new lease Morro Bay Seafood gets 10 years and three months, starting April 1, 2026, and expiring June 30, 2036, “unless sooner terminated,” reads the lease.
There’s of course a catch. The new lease is “conditioned upon the leaseholder’s commitment to complete specified capital improvements and maintenance obligations, including remodel of the dock office building, maintenance of freezer containers, contribution toward Priority 1 wharf repairs, and ongoing maintenance of the ice facility.”
Like all Tideland’s Leases, the tenants have a lot of responsibility for maintenance, repairs and payments.
For the 10-year lease Morro Bay Seafood will have to:
• Remodel the dock office building for up to $15,000 within 24 months;
• Maintain and repair two freezer containers;
• Maintain the current icehouse with maximum expenditure of $10,000 per year;
• Payment of $22,500 toward Priority 1 repairs — plus any associated monitoring/inspection costs up to $10,000.
And if they contribute to the completion of Associated Pacific’s Priority 2 repairs, they can have a 10-year extension to June 2046.
That industrial ice machine is an essential facility for commercial fishing operations. It was obtained by the City in 2007 and funded through the Joint Cable-Fisheries Liaison Committee, Coastal Conservancy and the City. It replaced an old icehouse that used to hold giant blocks of ice bought from an ice making facility in Oceano, and grind it into flakes, filling fish holds before the boats left the harbor.
Without ice, a boat’s catch is in jeopardy of spoiling before they can get it to the dock.
The new base rent is set at $15,000 per year for the 10-year initial lease. That base rent would be subject to annual adjustments for inflation under the Master Lease Policy.
The new lease won’t solve all the Harbor’s maintenance issues, but it’s better than what they’ve been getting for over a year.
“Harbor staff believe the new lease agreement addresses the three main priorities. While the terms do not generate significant revenue, compared to retail and non-Measure D sites, they are consistent with past and current wholesale operations in Morro Bay. The benefit of this agreement is its support of the local commercial fishing industry.”
