The 2028 Summer Olympics are still a couple of years away but the need to use a popular San Pedro youth camp for training has led the Port of Los Angeles to issue an eviction notice to the Scouts of America.
The eviction notice for the Cabrillo Beach Youth Sports Waterfront Center has caused a stir in the community — with the area’s Los Angeles councilmember among those weighing in.
Councilmember Tim McOsker on Wednesday, Dec. 10, issued a statement calling for community meetings, including presentations to Harbor Area neighborhood councils, adding that he’s asked the port to “commit to ensuring that the site remains accessible and usable by local youth and families.”
“I share the concerns expressed by residents and community organizations,” McOsker said. “Greater community engagement on this issue is needed, and the port has now committed to attend and present at several neighborhood council meetings to discuss the site’s future. My office will work to ensure that access to the site by the Scouts is not diminished, and that other community groups, especially those serving our youth, are also enabled to access the site, both in the near term and in the future.”
The port, meanwhile, said in a Wednesday statement that it notified the Scouts that its month-to-month lease would end. The site, the port said, needs to begin preparations for its commitment to support “national and international sailing federations training for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
Six Olympic sailing events are scheduled to be staged in the port’s Outer Harbor, POLS said, and “establishing an operational training facility is a required component of the port’s venue responsibilities and must begin well in advance of the competition.”
“The port is committed to ensuring that community groups continue to have access to the waterfront and the facility for programs and activities,” the port said. “The port values the many years of youth programming provided at Cabrillo Beach and is focused on maintaining community-serving uses while Olympic training operations take place.”
Some $5 million in improvements are planned to prepare the property for the Olympics, the port said, with funding coming from POLA’s Public Access Investment Plan.
But the port also said other plans are moving forward to open up bids “to identify a long-term operator to expand youth education, recreation and community engagement at the site following the Olympic Games.”
A representative of the Scouts could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
The Cabrillo Beach property, 3000 Shoshonean Road, has long been used for sailing and camping by the Scouts and other groups, and remains a spot that has had widespread support in the community.
Its history goes back to 1946, after the end of World War II, when the Los Angeles Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America signed a lease with the Port of L.A. for the 12.3 acres of land, with the intent of turning the vacant area between Cabrillo Beach and the Cabrillo Marina into a camp.
It was designed as one of several summer camp facilities in Los Angeles, and was open to other groups, in addition to the Scouts. It operated for almost three decades, with more than 40 other youth groups also using the facility.
In 1987, a renovation began with then-film director and former Eagle Scout Steven Spielberg stepping to donate more than $1 million for the construction of the Spielberg Center at the camp. It included meeting rooms, a dining center, amphitheater, swimming pool, boat house, crafts center and gift shop.
The entire project was given a new name: The Cabrillo Beach Youth Waterfront Sports Center. The total cost of the 1980s renovations there eventually reached $4.2 million.
The camp has been on a month-to-month lease but a long-term tenant has been sought by the port in the recent past and is still in play. The Scouts would be among those invited to put in a bid during a future opening of the process to find such a tenant.
Upcoming community discussions under McOsker’s proposal will likely bring up many of those issues in the interim.
“I appreciate that the port must make capital improvements to the site to accommodate the six Olympic events coming to the L.A. Harbor in 2028,” the councilmember’s statement said. “That renovation and upgrade requires the port to get site control of the center.
“I have been assured that the port is discussing an agreement with the Scouts that will provide an organized transition for their current use of the site, as well as for other existing users,” McOsker added. “I also have been assured that Pathway to Podium, the organization that will steward the site through the Games, will be required to accommodate both existing and new users, including the Scouts. Should our office find that access to the site is not adequate for the community, we reserve our right to take action to guarantee it.”
Daily Breeze staff writer Sam Gnerre contributed to this report.