More Details of Esplanade Project Emerge

New photos of a model show the concept of the proposed Malibu Esplanade Project, a resurrected plan from the 1980s to build a bike path and viewing platforms from the Malibu Pier to the Malibu Lagoon.

The photos were taken by the city of Malibu Department of Parks and Recreation staff during a recent meeting at the Malibu studio of Ann Ryan, the designer  behind the project.

The model shows a proposed viewing platform at the famous Surfrider Beach, which is one of several phases of the project.

The Malibu Parks and Recreation Commission is currently reviewing the first phase of the project, which only includes the viewing platform at Surfrider Beach. The viewing platform would be located between the Malibu Pier and the Adamson House.

"The whole goal was to have a unifying theme to get from one place to another, to have an identity with the city and to not have people walking through a highway," Ryan said. "It needed to have an identity, to show 'here you are, you are finally at Malibu beach.'"

Ryan met in January with members of the Malibu Parks and Recreation Commission, which formed a subcommittee made up of Commissioners Carl Randall, Graeme Clifford and Steve Parks to gather facts about the project.

Ryan is expected to answer questions about the project at the Tuesday, Feb. 19 Parks and Recreation Commission meeting at Malibu City Hall.

Malibu city staff are in the process of putting together a staff report about the project, which will include information about the project's possible funding sources. The report will also address the fact that the project is proposed on state-owned land.

Officials from the state of California, Los Angeles County and Caltrans would have to be on board for the project to move forward.

The project was proposed by Ryan in the 1980s when her nonprofit received grants from the California Coastal Conservancy, California Department of Parks and Los Angeles County.

More recently, Ryan made several attempts to solicit grant funds from the city in 2010 and 2011, but none of the requests were funded.

According to an excerpt from the original California Coastal Conservancy grant application, the project area would extend from the Malibu Pier to the entrance of the Malibu Lagoon State Park.

The plans call for 3.5 miles of pedestrian walkways, bikeways, a viewing deck at Surfrider Beach and access to trails in the Santa Monica Mountains and the shops in the Cross Creek area. To accommodate the walkways and bikeways, the 1980s version of the project calls for the widening of the Malibu Bridge over the Malibu Lagoon on Pacific Coast Highway.

Ryan said the bridge has already been widened, and that she didn't fully read the project description she submitted from an old grant application.

Malibu Surfrider Beach was dedicated as the first World Surfing Reserve in 2010. In 2009, California State Parks won the Los Angeles Conservancy Preservation Award for its restoration of the Malibu Pier.

Ryan said she hopes the city takes the lead on the project.

"It identifies when you come up Pacific Coast Highway, you’re in Malibu," Ryan said.