Like Pier, Renovation Hopes Are Crumbling : Landmarks: New safety concerns arise. The state is willing to let Malibu take over the structure, in exchange for repairs, but city officials are not interested.

More than two years after the state announced its latest effort to restore the Malibu Pier, plans remain grounded, and frustrated state officials have even offered to let Malibu take over the crumbling landmark in exchange for a promise to repair it.

In a letter to City Manager Ray Taylor, a former top official of the state Department of Parks and Recreation suggested in November that the state was willing to part with the pier if Malibu would take it over.

Malibu officials, perhaps aware of the financial headache the deteriorated pier has come to represent, expressed no interest, and the state didn’t pursue the matter.

The offer, coming nearly two years to the day after the agency announced plans to award concession rights at the pier to a restaurant owner and his partners, illustrates how frustrating--and fruitless--its efforts to restore the pier have become.

Now, however, new questions have arisen about the pier’s safety, with a state official acknowledging that the pier has not been thoroughly inspected in more than five years.

In an interview, Robert D. Cates, the head of the Parks and Recreation division responsible for maintaining the pier, said that aside from a “partial assessment” last year by engineers from the State Lands Commission, the pier has not been inspected since late 1986.

A private engineer’s report in 1986 recommended that substantial work be done immediately to assure the pier’s structural integrity, and that it be inspected again in no more than three years.

But only a small part of the recommended work was ever done, with the state spending only about $45,000 to replace a few timbers later that year.

By its own estimate, the state has said it could take up to $3.2 million to adequately repair the 87-year-old structure. With funding unavailable, the state has pursued a strategy of letting someone else make the repairs in exchange for exclusive concession rights at the pier.

Asked this week whether the agency could vouch for the pier’s safety, Cates said, “We have no evidence to indicate that it is unsafe.”

But critics of the state’s handling of the matter aren’t comforted.

Madelyn Glickfeld, a member of the California Coastal Commission and a Malibu resident, said it was inexcusable that the parks agency has not inspected the pier.

“A lot of energy went into the effort to help the state acquire that pier, and it would seem they’re simply allowing an important resource to dissipate,” she said.

Others say the pier is a disaster waiting to happen.

“One of these days when we have a storm-tossed sea, there’s going to be big trouble,” said Marty Cooper, who owns the Malibu Beach Inn, a hotel near the pier.

During a storm last week, a bait platform near the pier that is part of the pier’s sportfishing operation broke loose from its moorings and rammed ashore on a beach two miles away, near where Cooper lives.

“We were lucky it didn’t crash into the pilings holding up people’s homes,” Cooper said. “You could have the same thing happen if a piling breaks loose from the pier itself, only it will be much worse.”

The pier, which the state bought for $2.5 million in 1980 from a Los Angeles businessman, is arguably Malibu’s most identifiable landmark. Built in 1905, it has a long history of being battered by storms and neglected by owners.

In 1988, it appeared things were looking up for the pier after the state awarded the concession contract--and along with it, responsibility for making repairs--to a West Los Angeles lawyer. But the lawyer walked out on the deal six months after it was signed.

In November, 1989, state officials announced their intent to award concession rights to Bob Yuro, operator of Alice’s Restaurant on the pier, and three partners. But the talks have languished, and no work has been done.

Last July, in response to inquiries from The Times, the head of the parks agency’s concession program, Andrea Patterson, said that although the talks had hit a snag, a final agreement was imminent and that officials hoped to reach agreement within two weeks.

Interviewed again this week, Patterson said the same thing. Both state officials and Yuro have declined to discuss the specifics of the proposed arrangement or why it has taken so long to negotiate.

However, a source familiar with the negotiations said that a major sticking point has been the state’s unwillingness to provide Yuro with sufficient rent abatements for the restaurant to induce him and his partners to make the repairs.

Yuro and his partners have held out for a better deal, concerned that--given the pier’s dilapidated condition--the pier may require far more money to repair than originally anticipated, the source said.

In the letter to Malibu’s city manager in November, Les McCargo, the parks agency’s former chief deputy director, said that the department’s budget was extremely limited and that no specific work on the pier was scheduled in the coming year. McCargo retired last week.

“If the city . . . is interested in operation of the Malibu Pier and willing to be responsible for repairs, perhaps a transfer agreement would be a proper approach,” he said.

Patterson, the head of the concessions program, said that she was unaware of the letter. She said the agency remains committed to reaching an agreement with Yuro and his partners.