SAN PEDRO, Calif. — With help from the Port of Los Angeles, a new waterfront restaurant is about to open at a renovated San Pedro site.
The Port of LA has a hand in many infrastructure and improvement projects, which means funding and maintaining more than 400 acres of waterfront property.
Trani's Dockside Station will one day be within the zone, as it's expected to open at 307 West 22nd St. by summer 2022. It will be located on the ground floor of a building with a long past.
Before he was a teenager, Chef Dustin Trani started working in his great grandfather's restaurant, J. Trani's Ristorante. Since then, he's made changes and embraced traditions. His sister is a server and his father, Jim, does a little bit of everything. Being in business with family is the only life he's ever known.
"You might talk to each other a little differently than you would another employee, but like I said, it comes from a place of love," Trani said.
The family is embarking on something huge. In addition to their place on West Ninth Street, they plan to open a new, second restaurant right by both the water and their seafood suppliers in a historic building. The building used to be an immigration station for foreigners getting off ships.
Although Trani's family came through Ellis Island, they're still connected to this place because, more recently, it was Canetti's Seafood Grotto. It used to be owned by a family friend and was where generations of Trani family members would dine together.
Before they could begin renovations, the family had to go through the owner — the Port of LA. Mike Galvin, the port's director of waterfront and commercial real estate, helped broker the deal that is part of a much larger effort on the port's behalf to do good.
"It's just not OK to continue on with our normal business operations without being aware of the community around us," Galvin said.
Environmentally and aesthetically, harbor communities have been negatively impacted by the ports. Beginning in 2005, the Port of LA invested hundreds of millions of dollars to improve the waterfront, not only trying to clean it up but also supporting projects that could bring jobs and tourists.
Trani has watched the concerted effort excitedly, and now his family will join.
"There's always been talk of development down here, and then now, firsthand, you're seeing it," he said.