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LA’s Wilmington Waterfront Promenade opens after Sasaki landscape overhaul

2024-02-29T12:24:00-05:00

The Wilmington Waterfront Promenade in Los Angeles has opened to the public following an extensive public landscape project by Sasaki Associates. The park seeks to improve public waterfront access near the Port of Los Angeles and expands on the 30-acre Wilmington Waterfront Park that Sasaki completed in 2011.

Image credit: Barrett Doherty

The new promenade, designed by Sasaki and Studio-MLA, is described by the team as “the first opportunity for the community to reconnect with the waterfront.” Among the spaces designed as part of the promenade is ‘The Landing,’ which sits at the highest point of the park, doubling as a spot for a future bridge. Meanwhile, the ‘Upland Walkways’ consists of a series of meandering paths landscaped with coastal planting.

Image credit: Barrett Doherty

‘The Bluff’ consists of a large, flexible open lawn intended to host community events, while the ‘Tidal Steps’ is described as a “dynamic water's ...

SWA Group to develop the Port of LA's waterfront connectivity plan

2022-12-22T12:39:00-05:00

SWA Group has announced plans to transform parts of America’s biggest container port, the Port of Los Angeles (POLA), in a project aimed at increasing connectivity in the public access realm.

“The San Pedro Waterfront is on its way to becoming a truly world-class destination, and we believe that much of it depends on connectivity,” SWA’s Co-CEO Gerdo Aquino explained in a statement. “It will be transformative to enhance accessibility for locals and visitors alike, to create an easily navigable multi-modal waterfront.”

In the hopes of “aiding its evolution over the next 50 years,” Aquino’s team of engineers and other project consultants will work to activate the waterfront area while compiling a comprehensive mobility strategy that links different nodes along eight miles of potentially accessible waterfront edges and a 460-acre swath of land.

Image courtesy SWA Group

The scope of the project will incorporate cruise terminals, the historic San Pedro Ferry Building, Cabrillo Marine Aqu...

The port of Los Angeles is headed toward automation, like it or not

2019-06-28T13:47:00-04:00

In a letter Monday to Garcetti and the Los Angeles City Council, Maersk, the global shipping giant, announced it will move ahead with introducing driverless cargo carriers at its port terminal, the nation’s largest, regardless of the outcome of a City Council vote on the project scheduled for Friday.

Thousands of dockworkers at the Port of Los Angeles could be put out of work as Danish shipping giant Maersk moves to automate its operations at the terminal against the wishes of local unions and politicians.

In a letter explaining the decision, APM Terminals, the Maersk subsidiary that operates the port, writes, “[Maersk] has the undisputed right under its lease and its collective bargaining agreement to introduce automated technology of this sort and does not require any permit or any other port, city or state approval.”

The operator is planning to replace its diesel-fueled operations with 130 electric automated cargo carriers that will run 24 hours per day, The Los Angeles Times reports.

According to The Los Angeles Times, the ports not only handle 35% of U.S. imports, but are also the single-largest source of air pollution in Southern California, with economic trends projecting massive growth in terms of container volume over coming decades.

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