Nothing bugs some passers-by more than a sign that touts a fishing pier is open — when they see the town’s pier has stayed split with a massive gap, the result of heavy storm damage.
You can imagine the community reaction when a restored “open-24-hours” pier sign recently went up in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, on a street corner near State Road A1A and Commercial Boulevard.
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The prominently placed sign calls attention to Lauderdale-by-the-Sea’s privately owned Anglin’s Pier, which reaches into the Atlantic right at the most eastern end of Commercial Boulevard. The sign, which was spotted being put back up this week, instantly became a talker on social media. People couldn’t resist citing the need for pier repairs.
“It’s open alright … right in the middle,” one person remarked on Facebook.
“24 hours (but not in a row),” another quipped.
“There is still a pier. It’s just in two pieces.”
“You have to swim to get to the other half!”
“It doesn’t say ‘where’ the pier is lol,” another person wrote. “Maybe it’s somewhere else.”
The blue-and-white sign also features a silhouette of a fully intact pier. Someone posted an altered image of the sign, only with half of the pier shown, the other half gone. “Made it more accurate,” the person wrote, with a laughing emoji.
Plans for improvement
The pier’s owner, Spiro Marchelos, said in his view, the sign isn’t wrong: The full pier will be open 24 hours when it is repaired and reopened. And his bait and tackle shop also will be open 24 hours; its opening is imminent.
There’s a beach cafe now at the pier, but it’s open dayside, not around the clock.
The pier’s owner said permits could start to arrive in early 2025, which would allow the heavy lifting to begin.
“The permits, everything is in activity, in the pipeline,” Marchelos said. “What can I do, it’s a process. Everything takes time and we want to do it right. I don’t want to do something and regret it so it can last the next 100 years.”
“It’s a work in progress,” he said this week. “Everything takes time.”
The history
The pier’s history dates to 1941 when the original version opened.
After a major rebuilding project was completed, it reopened just two days after the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The pier, which is named for Melvin Anglin, the town’s first mayor, for years has attracted fishing aficionados and other visitors 24 hours a day.
But the end portion of Anglin’s Pier was damaged by Hurricane Irma in 2017 and was already closed to the public when it was slammed again in 2022 by Hurricane Nicole.
And there was still more heartache to come: It was pounded by gusty winds and strong waves in December, lopping off more fragments of the pier to the shore, and taking out navigational lights that boaters need to be able to see.
A debate over a sign
The ownership of the sign was debated at Town Hall in September.
The “24-hour” sign was removed at one point during Lauderdale-by-the-Sea’s Downtown Enhancement Project, and needed to be “removed in order to accommodate the redesign of the pedestrian path and landscape beds,” according to town records.
It went into storage, but the pier owner claimed ownership of the sign.
“However, no documentation was available at the meeting to substantiate this claim. The Commission then directed Staff to perform research into who owns the sign and bring this information back at a future meeting. Staff has done an extensive search throughout the Town’s records, and we are unable to find any documentation of who conclusively owns the sign,” according to town minutes.
Ultimately, the town agreed that the pier owned the sign, and paid the bill to put it back in its rightful place.
“The sign belongs to the company, it’s part of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea’s history, the sign has got to be up, it stays,” Marchelos said. “That’s a historical sign.”
Going forward
In 2022, a contractor the owner hired said at a town code compliance hearing that it would cost up to $20 million to rebuild the pier, which extended a little more than 900 feet into the Atlantic Ocean before the storm. The gap starts roughly at the 350-foot mark.
And an engineer retained by Marchelos told a special magistrate at the hearing in 2022 that it could take up to two years to obtain the necessary environmental permits for any work to start.
Marchelos said he won’t have updated dollar estimates for several months, and hopes that with the economy improving, the cost of construction materials could go down.
He said many steps are underway, including ongoing coral reef impact studies.
He hopes the construction will be done for a “grand opening” ceremony to coincide with America’s milestone birthday celebration July 4, 2026.
“We are full steam ahead,” he said.
The town of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea appears to have a more conservative prediction: It estimates a two-year construction period, but does not expect that to begin until the summer of 2026, according to the town’s website.
Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com. Follow on X, formerly Twitter, @LisaHuriash