Los Angeles Harbor Area pleasure boat marinas have been around for a long time. The Al Larson Boat Shop, for example, is one of the oldest — having opened its 128-slip small boat marina in 1924.
Two other marinas were built in Wilmington right after World War II, the Yacht Haven Marina in 1947 and Holiday Harbor in 1954, with more than 300 slips between the two of them.
The 1950s brought an increase in larger marina projects in general along the Santa Monica Bay. Construction on the massive Marina del Rey boat marina began in 1957, and it opened in 1965. Its various operators manage more than 5,000 boat slips
Work on the King Harbor project that changed the face of coastal Redondo Beach began in 1958 and opened in 1966. In addition to rearranging city streets in the area, King Harbor also provided boaters with more than 800 slips.
Small boats docked at the Cabrillo Marina in San Pedro on July 22, 2026. (Photo by Sam Gnerre)
This is an artist’s rendering of the proposed Cabrillo Marina prepared by Victor Gruen Assiciates for the Harbor commissioners. The facility will provide berths for approximately 3,000 boats and would cost $21 million to build. San Pedro News Pilot, Nov. 2, 1967, Page 9. (San Pedro News Pilot archives)
Banner headline. Cabrillo Beach Marina Held Feasible. San Pedro News Pilot, June 1, 1960, Page 1. (San Pedro News Pilot archives)
The Cabrillo Marina, center. Slips at right are part of the Cabrillo Way Marina. Undated photo. (Cabrillo Marina Facebook page)
Google Earth aerial view shows the two marinas, center, identified in green lettering. The Main Channel of Los Angeles Harbor is at right, marked by twin dotted lines. 2026 image. (Google Earth)
The Cabrillo Way Marina, foreground. The Cabrillo Marina can be seen across the West Channel at upper right. Undated photo. (Cabrillo Way Marina Facebook page)
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Small boats docked at the Cabrillo Marina in San Pedro on July 22, 2026. (Photo by Sam Gnerre)
Unlike these large projects, San Pedro has the Port of Los Angeles, one of the 10 largest commercial boat harbors in the U.S. to consider before building a large marina. Pleasure boat traffic, and massive freighters and tankers need their own spaces to co-exist.
The closure of the Lower Reservation of the Fort MacArthur military base potentially freed up land along the West Channel for development.
The West Channel area seemed ideal for a boat marina, adjacent to the port’s Main Channel but not intertwined with its waterways. In 1986, port officials told the San Pedro News Pilot that plans to build a large marina there could be dated back to engineering drawings made in 1928.
The Long Beach engineering firm Moffat & Nichol made the first official proposal to build the Cabrillo Marina project to the Los Angeles harbor commission on Sept. 13, 1960. It called for a $6.15 million marina to be built that could accommodate roughly 1,800 boats.
Five years after that, Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty unveiled a revised marina plan
“The people of Los Angeles have needed a proper place for private craft at the harbor for at least 35 years,” Yorty told members of the press in March 1965.
He went on to point out that when completed, it would be the closest small craft harbor to Catalina Island, a distance of 22 miles, and would boost tourism there.
It all sounded good. But building a marina there turned out to be another matter entirely. At that same press conference, it was announced optimistically that construction would begin in January 1966, with berth occupancy starting in 1967.
Move ahead to November 1968, and the debate over the marina site’s appropriateness seemed to have gathered steam, with opposition coming from conservationists and skeptics of the plan.
Debate and new studies of the project would continue for the next few years. In July 1972, the U.S. Navy threw up another roadblock when it announced it had no plans to vacate its moldering facilities in the Lower Reservation area.
Four years later, the project finally began to get off the ground when the federal government overruled the Navy and declared the project area as being surplus land. Three years after that, in December 1979, a compromise plan that called for a combined marina and recreational area was approved.
Seven years later, construction was nearly complete on the marina on the east side of the Outer Harbor. The first boaters began moving into their slips in January 1986, a mere 26 years after plans were first officially submitted.
This facility, at 224 Whalers Walk, is named Cabrillo Marina and has 885 permanent slips. It was operated by the Los Angeles Harbor Department for its first dozen years, but ownership passed to the private California Yacht Marina company in 1998.
An additional marina on the east side of the West Channel took longer to complete, opening in 2011 after older, smaller marinas were bought out and additional detritus left over from its Fort MacArthur days was cleared.
Named Cabrillo Way Marina, 2293 Miner St., it’s owned by the Port of Los Angeles and operated by Suntex Marinas/Westrec Marinas. It has 697 permanent slips.
Sources: Daily Breeze archives. Los Angeles Times archives. Port of Los Angeles website. San Pedro News Pilot archives. Wikipedia.