An attempt to make Southern California an international leader in the “blue economy” is taking shape in San Pedro as a $30 million renovation of three historic waterfront warehouses nears completion.
AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles, as the complex is known, is home to businesses focused on the sea, such as the headquarters of explorer Robert Ballard, who located the wreckage of the Titanic and the German battleship Bismarck. There he docks his research ship, the Nautilus, as well as the Pacific Alliance, an offshore mussel farming ship.
On barges docked at AltaSea dock, scientists from USC, UCLA and Caltech are developing methods to reduce ocean carbon dioxide and technology to clean ships' exhaust stacks. Other tenants of the former warehouses include startups that are building a new generation of remote underwater cameras and 3-D printers to build parts for wind, wave and offshore solar farms.
Jenny Cornuelle Krusoe, executive vice president and chief operating officer of AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
An aerial view of Captura, a barge at AltaSea where crews monitor equipment used to extract carbon dioxide from seawater.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
“AltaSea is education, research and business working together,” said Jenny Krusoe, executive vice president and chief operating officer. The size and waterfront location, she added, make AltaSea “a unicorn property that is basically made to be the mother ship of the blue economy.”
Mayor Karen Bass and others involved in AltaSea, including City Councilman Tim McOsker and Port of Los Angeles CEO Gene Seroka, are expected to officially open the facility at a ceremony Wednesday.
AltaSea is bringing new purpose to a previously moribund pier that once played an important role in the evolution of Southern California.
In the early 20th century, merchants and city leaders in Los Angeles set out to capture a share of the growing global maritime trade expected to pass through the Panama Canal, a link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that opened in 1914. They created a municipal dock. on the waterfront of what has become the sprawling port of Los Angeles, with a long stretch of warehouses where burly longshoremen loaded and unloaded ships onto trains, cars and trucks.
The growth of container shipping after World War II made City Dock No. 1 obsolete for the transportation of goods, and the dock was little used for decades. By 2011, advocates, including port officials, He saw it for what it was: a 35-acre site chosen for a research center and technology companies focused on sustainable use of the world's oceans.
A key part of the nonprofit company's mission is to create jobs with pioneering companies. Among them is the nonprofit AltaSeads Conservancy, the largest aquaculture seed bank in the United States. Like their terrestrial counterparts, aquaculture seed banks are intended to preserve the genetic diversity of plant life for the future. AltaSeads is also promoting the use of seaweed as an easy-to-grow resource.
“It's a super versatile crop,” said scientist Emily Aguirre of AltaSeads, which can provide food for humans and livestock while removing carbon from the atmosphere. “It can also be used to fertilize terrestrial agriculture, and it's great because if you grow it in the ocean, you don't take up land.”
Michael Marty Rivera and Emily Aguirre of AltaSeads Conservancy monitor varieties of seaweed in storage tanks.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Kelp is also a source of algae that reduces methane emissions from cows, Aguirre said, and has many other food applications, including reducing freezer burn in ice cream.
Eco Wave Power, an Israel-based company, will install the first U.S. onshore wave energy pilot station in the coming months in the port's main channel, adjacent to AltaSea. The float system attaches directly to pre-existing structures, such as breakwaters, docks and piers, and produces energy from the constant movement of waves. Another AltaSea company, CorPower Ocean, uses buoys and hydraulic pressure for power production.
Rustom Jehangir, founder and CEO of Blue Robotics, shows off his BlueROV2, a high-performance remotely operated vehicle that can be used for inspections, investigations and adventures.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
AltaSea's figurative whale so far is Ballard, who settled on the old docks several years ago and has captured the public's interest as a deep-sea explorer and scientific researcher. It is his headquarters and home to his research and development.
AltaSea has a rooftop solar array larger than three football fields that generates 2.2 megawatts, enough to power 700 homes a year and more energy than the entire campus will need when it reaches full capacity.
The BlueROV2 vehicle.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
To fund the pier redevelopment, AltaSea received $29 million from the state, the Port of Los Angeles and private donors. The funds paid for construction, installation of solar panels and the future creation of a park.
AltaSea is one of multiple projects that are part of a two-decade process to clean up the air and water at the port and turn unused docks, piers and warehouses into places where more people will want to work or visit, port officials said.
“Bringing people to our shores has been a hallmark of the Port of Los Angeles for decades,” Seroka said in 2020, and recent investments “will really take us to the next level.”
Before the pandemic, about 3 million people came to the Los Angeles coast annually for recreation, a number that port leaders hope to double in the coming years. To pave the way for new developments that serve visitors, the Port of Los Angeles is investing about $1 billion in infrastructure improvements over 10 years, Seroka said. Private developers building AltaSea and other projects will invest approximately $500 million.
Taylor Marchment, manufacturing R&D leader at RCAM Technologies, demonstrates 3D concrete printing for marine renewable energy.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
One of those projects, West Harbor, is a long-planned redevelopment of a 42-acre site that used to be home to Ports O' Call, a kitschy imitation of a New England fishing village, built in the 1960s. , which fell out of favor years ago and was razed in 2018.
Restaurants anchoring the dining, shopping and entertainment hub will include Yamashiro, the second branch of a Japanese-themed Hollywood destination for locals and tourists. Another great restaurant will be Mexican themed and have an overwater bar. There will also be a food hall and Bark Social, an off-leash dog park, bar and cafe. The complex is scheduled to open next year.
The waterfront developments represent improvements that San Pedro residents have been waiting for decades to see, said Dustin Trani, whose family has been in the local restaurant business for nearly a century. Last year, the chef opened Trani's Dockside Station, a seafood restaurant located between AltaSea and West Harbor, in part to take advantage of the expected influx of visitors.
“We're on the cusp of a very big economic boom in this area that hasn't been seen yet,” Trani said.
