Crews are set to begin dismantling the beloved neon sign that has greeted visitors to the Santa Monica Pier since 1941, with removal work starting Tuesday and continuing through Thursday. The Streamline Moderne landmark, listed on the California Register of Historical Resources, will be shipped to Las Vegas for a full restoration before its eventual return atop a rebuilt Pier Bridge.
According to LAist, workers will spend Tuesday setting up equipment and beginning the takedown, with the sign's top crown portion coming down Wednesday and the main sign following on Thursday. All of the work is scheduled to happen between 5 a.m. and 3 p.m. each day. The city has opened two public viewing areas for anyone who wants to watch the historic sign come down: one at the southern edge of Palisades Park across from The Lobster restaurant, and another at the corner of Ocean and Colorado avenues, per the same outlet's report.
Once removed, the sign will head to YESCO, a Las Vegas-based sign company founded in 1920 that the City of Santa Monica says is nationally recognized for creating, maintaining, and restoring neon signage. YESCO's past projects include the iconic “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign and Utah's 105-year-old Sweet Candy Company sign, according to santamonica.gov. The company will strip rust, repair the sign's neon tubing, re-coat its structural metal, and store it in Las Vegas until bridge construction wraps up.
Why the Sign Is Coming Down Now
The sign's removal is one piece of a much larger undertaking: the city's Pier Bridge Replacement Project, which will swap out the 87-year-old bridge connecting Ocean Avenue to the pier deck. That 1939 structure carried a municipal bridge sufficiency rating of just 8.2 out of 100 and no longer met modern seismic or accessibility standards, according to Ontario Construction News. The new span will stretch 447 feet long and 39 feet wide, with a widened 15-foot pedestrian walkway and a 20-foot vehicle and bicycle lane, engineered for a 75-year service life.
Santa Monica's City Council awarded a $35.5 million construction contract to Shimmick Construction Company in late 2025 to carry out the rebuild, with more than $30 million coming from the Federal Highway Bridge Program and the rest covered by local transportation funds, the outlet's report notes. Hoodline previously covered the project's groundbreaking, which the city has tied to a completion target ahead of the 2028 Olympics.
To make room for heavy demolition and column construction, Santa Monica closed the Moomat Ahiko Way on- and off-ramps connecting Pacific Coast Highway to Ocean Avenue starting September 29, for a two-month closure, according to Wisevoter. The closures give crews staging space for equipment while keeping drivers clear of the active construction zone.
A Nine-Month Delay, But the Same 2027 Target
The sign's removal was originally scheduled for January 2026 under the city's initial plans released in late 2025, but complex multi-agency coordination pushed the dismantling back nine months to this October, per Patch. Despite that delay, the city's overall completion target for the bridge rebuild has remained focused on late 2027.
When the restored sign returns to the finished bridge, it won't sit in exactly the same spot. City officials say it will be positioned roughly 10 feet north of its historic location and raised to a 17-foot vertical clearance, changes specified to improve visibility and provide added clearance for delivery and emergency vehicles.
Keeping the Photo Tradition Alive
With the original sign gone for more than a year, city officials installed a lit, half-scale replica on the pier deck near Pier Burger and Pacific Park to preserve the tourist photo tradition. The Santa Monica Pier draws an estimated 14 million visitors annually, making that photo spot a significant draw for nearby businesses during the construction disruption.
The sign's wording — “Santa Monica Yacht Harbor - Sport Fishing - Boating - Cafes” — often puzzles modern visitors, but it reflects a 1930s breakwater and short-lived commercial yacht harbor that once offered moorings to prominent locals, including actor Charlie Chaplin, according to santamonica.gov. The outbreak of World War II largely ended the pier's run as an active yacht harbor not long after the sign went up.
The original 35-foot-wide sign was designed and built in 1941 by the Pan-Pacific Neon Sign Company for $2,000, funded by the Santa Monica Businessmen's Association to catch the eye of passing motorists, according to Pacific Park. It followed a roadway project that had created a new ramp from Colorado Avenue onto the pier boardwalk — a predecessor, in some sense, to the very bridge now being rebuilt around it.
