Cunningham Pier owners provide update on carpark, building’s future

Cunningham Pier carpark will likely remain closed until mid next week, after firefighters responded to calls of an ‘explosion’ and flames on the underside of the structure on Friday morning.

Firefighters respond to emergency at Cunningham Pier. Picture: Georgie Kibel

Residents could be forced to wait a week until Cunningham Pier reopens after an electrical fire on Friday, as the site’s owners spoke about their interim plans for the iconic structure.

Emergency services were called to the pier about 6.30am on Friday after multiple people called triple-0 reporting an “explosion” followed by flames.

Costa Property Group chief executive Carl Schokman, whose company owns the pier, confirmed on Sunday the carpark could be closed all week.

“We’re waiting for Powercor to connect the electricity,” Mr Schokman said.

“They had some failure in the cables that go into the main substation and they reckon it’ll take a week for them to do that.

Cunningham Pier was closed off to the public as emergency services responded to reports of an "explosion" on the underside of the structure. Picture: Georgie Kibel

“We can’t open the pier because there are no lights, there’s no power to run anything, so we have to shut it.”

Thelandmark building at the end of the pier has been empty since December last year, when restaurants The Pier Geelong, Wah Wah Gee and Wah Bar closed their doors.

Mr Schokman confirmed there were currently no plans to fill the building.

“We’re not intending to rent it at the moment,” he said.

“We’re running it as a commercial carpark.”

On Friday morning it took some time for fire trucks to access the property due to closed gates at the entry to the pier.

“FRV’s incident response was not impacted,” a spokesman for the organisation said.

Two trucks parked at the adjoining carpark and firefighters could be seen carrying extinguishers to The Pier Geelong building.

A truck was able to gain access about an hour after their initial response.

The fire was on the underside of the building, with emergency services taking to the water to help bring it under control.

At about 9am, a specialist fireboat was deployed to enable crews to access the underside of the pier.

The fire was deemed under control at 9:13am.

Mr Schokman said on Friday the incident was caused by a problem with an electrical cable located under the pier, but thankfully there was no damage to the building.

He told the Geelong Advertiser that energy company Powercor, who were on the scene while emergency services responded, carried out a temporary fix on Friday morning.

Mr Schokman said technicians from the company will return next week to make a permanent fix, but in the meantime, there is no power to operate the boom gates at the pier.

“We don’t have power on the pier to run the boom gates until about mid-next week, so the carpark may or may not be closed during that period,” he said.

Victoria Police were also on the scene and said the fire was not believed to be suspicious.

Originally published as Cunningham Pier owners provide update on carpark, building’s future