Plans for a joint effort of the nonprofit La Jolla Coastal Conservancy and the city of San Diego to repair and reopen La Jolla’s South Casa Beach stairway got support from the California Coastal Commission during its meeting June 10.

The base of the beach access stairs at South Casa near the Children’s Pool lifeguard tower was damaged by storms in early 2024, and the stairway was chained off by the city.

With funds lacking to repair the damage, the stairs have remained blocked. Now the La Jolla Coastal Conservancy will formally serve as the lead applicant for a project to fix it.

The conservancy was formed in 2025, inspired by the public/private collaboration between the city and Friends of Coast Walk Trail. It aims to provide a mechanism for private entities to conduct repairs on city land by using a right-of-entry permit rather than starting from scratch for each project.

The conservancy will be responsible for all the South Casa project costs and engineering design, as well as construction contracting and permit applications. The city will offer “procedural support” in getting the project through development and implementation.

The city also will help in preparation of permit materials, facilitate department reviews and oversee construction inspections.

The project’s primary focus is on the lower portion of the stairway.

“If we were ripping down that whole thing and putting it back up, that would be a full rebuild and that would be a whole other trigger of complex permitting,” said Coastal Conservancy President Brenda Fake. “We believe we can do this under … a repair because we’re going to repair the bottom half of the stairs with a different design.”

A report from Coastal Commission staff says the preliminary repair plan “includes replacement of the damaged lower concrete treads, installation of a new caisson-supported landing designed to withstand gravity and lateral coastal forces, and reorientation of the lower stair run parallel to the shoreline to reduce exposure to direct wave impact.”

According to the report, the repair likely will require a coastal development permit as well as a consolidated permit, given its proximity to the beachfront.

“This is a significant development in that the Coastal Commission realizes there’s now a plan in place for the city to pursue … which means now we go to [San Diego] Development Services with our concept in mind,” Fake said.

“Everybody wants this to happen, but where you get the money and where you get the time and resources — that’s where we try to complement each other.”

Still, the report estimates the project could be as much as five years from completion. For now, the conservancy’s focus is on making sure the plans conform with city requirements, Fake said.

“We’ll work with the city, because while we say we’re going to do all this and we agreed to take on the cost side of it, the city does the whole thing about navigating through all the complexities of getting the permits,” she said.

“We don’t know how much it’ll cost,” she added. “We have an estimate of $5 million based on other people’s projects, but now we’re going to dig in.”

Another stair repair project in the works in La Jolla — to fix a crumbling Camino de la Costa beach stairway — received more than $2 million in state funding but has been moving slowly.

With the South Casa Beach project, Fake emphasized the importance of getting things rolling.

“There’s one argument that would say it’s our tax dollars that should do it, and I don’t disagree with that,” Fake said. “And you’d say ‘Yeah, we can save our tax dollars,’ but we also look at what we’ve got for the budget, and we’ve got a beach not being accessed.

“If we don’t fix some of this stuff, it’s not going back.” ♦