Long Beach Razes Historic Shed to Keep Pier B Rail Plan on Track

The Port of Long Beach wants to demolish a National Register-eligible transit shed at Berths D52–D54 to keep its Pier B rail project moving, according to a revised environmental study released on October 23, 2026.

The recirculated draft supplemental environmental impact report covers changes to rail infrastructure, utility connections, construction staging areas and nearby roads. The biggest single change is the shed. Full demolition, not the partial reconfiguration floated a year earlier, is now the preferred route to realign Pico Avenue.

Why the reversal? Engineering. A September 2025 draft studied reconfiguring the existing building instead of removing it. Subsequent assessments found partial demolition would not work — it was neither economically nor physically feasible without damaging what remained of the structure. So the port went back to the drawing board, and the shed is now on the chopping block.

That matters because the building has been determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. Its demolition becomes a key consideration in the environmental review, which is precisely why the port must recirculate the document and take fresh public input rather than simply press ahead.

What does the project actually deliver?

The Pier B On-Dock Rail Support Facility exists to shift containers from trucks to trains. It improves the movement of boxes between Long Beach's marine terminals and the national rail network, and the port has attached hard numbers to the promise:

• Triple the port's on-dock rail capacity once complete
• Rail dwell times cut from roughly four days to 24 hours by 2032
• Fewer truck movements as a bigger share of containers rides rail directly to inland destinations

Construction on the wider Pier B project began in 2024, with completion currently pencilled in for 2032. The port frames the scheme as a way to strengthen operational efficiency, absorb cargo growth and advance its environmental goals — a common enough trifecta, but here tied to concrete capacity and dwell-time targets rather than vague aspirations.

What else changes in the revised plan?

Beyond the shed, the revised study proposes adjustments to railway tracks, installation or removal of utilities, additional construction staging and equipment areas, pavement restriping and signage changes. Sections of Grant Street and Southern Pacific Drive in Wilmington would close under the proposed layout.

The port is careful to note these modifications are still under assessment through the supplemental environmental review process. None of them should be read as completed construction activities.

When can stakeholders respond?

A new public consultation window is now open. A virtual public meeting is scheduled for November 18, 2026, giving stakeholders and community members a chance to review the modifications and weigh in. Written comments run until December 9, 2026. The full revised draft supplemental EIR sits on the port's environmental review website.

The timeline is tight but unremarkable for a project of this scale: review, comment, revise, build.

For shippers and BCOs routing cargo through San Pedro Bay, the practical significance is capacity, not paperwork. Pier B is part of Long Beach's broader infrastructure programme aimed at strengthening freight rail connectivity and accommodating future container traffic growth. Every container that moves on-dock by rail is one that skips a drayage leg, and tripling rail capacity by 2032 would materially change the economics of inland distribution from the port complex.

One caveat worth holding onto: this latest filing is a planning step, not an expansion. It revises the environmental basis of the existing Pier B programme — no new rail development, no capacity beyond what was already on the books.

If the consultation closes cleanly and the shed demolition clears its historic-preservation hurdles, Pier B stays on its 2032 trajectory, with the four-days-to-24-hours dwell-time reduction as the number to watch.