The original pier, completed in 1929 at the conclusion of the Praya East Reclamation Scheme, was a modest structure: 120 feet 8 inches long, 35 feet 4 inches wide, with four flights of landing steps, situated at the end of Tonnochy Road on Gloucester Road. It probably suffered damage during the Japanese occupation and had to be repaired. Ferry services between Wan Chai and Jordan Road in Kowloon were running by 12 November 1949. The China Motor Bus Company rerouted its Route 2 to pass near the pier and introduced the auxiliary Route 8. In 1956, operations began shifting — the Stewart Pier took the Jordan Road line on 1 June, and a new service to Kowloon City started from the Tonnochy Road Pier on 3 July. A Hung Hom–Wan Chai service commenced on 12 November 1963. Gradually the web of connections grew, each new line threading the harbour in a slightly different direction.

The reclamation that ran from 1965 to 1972 fundamentally relocated Wan Chai's relationship to the water. The new coastline sat considerably further north than the old one, and the pier moved with it. The second-generation structure served Wan Chai for 46 years, handling a bus terminus, ferry connections to Tsim Sha Tsui and (until 2011) Hung Hom, and the daily flow of commuters who found the Star Ferry crossing to Kowloon faster or simpler than the MTR. In April 1988, the Jordan Road line ended; a new Tsim Sha Tsui service replaced it. The Hung Hom line terminated on 1 April 2011. By 2014, only the Tsim Sha Tsui crossing remained — and the second-generation pier's fate was sealed by the Central–Wan Chai Bypass reclamation project, which needed the land. The Star Ferry Company had objected to the demolition as early as 2007. It lost. The pier's last service ran on 29 August 2014.

The new pier opened on 30 August 2014 — one day after the old one closed, on the newly reclaimed coastline to the north. It covers about 2,200 square metres, roughly 150 square metres less than its predecessor, with facilities broadly comparable to the Central Star Ferry Pier. The second floor was designated for food and catering, though it took time to become operational after the pier opened. Passengers noted that the new walkway was narrower than what peak-hour traffic required; the Civil Engineering and Development Department replied that it was designed for the current ferry line's passenger volumes. The Exhibition Centre MTR station, which opened as part of the extended East Rail line in 2022, sits nearby — the latest in a long sequence of transit infrastructure that has always used the Wan Chai harbourfront as a logical hub.

From the pier, on a clear day, you can see the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront across about 900 metres of Victoria Harbour — the Avenue of Stars, the Peninsula Hotel's roofline, the hills of the New Territories rising behind. The Star Ferry crossing is one of the few experiences in Hong Kong that has remained roughly constant while everything around it has changed. The boats are slower than the MTR. They cost less. They provide a view. People who could take the tunnel choose the ferry for the ten minutes it offers: the smell of salt water, the engine vibration underfoot, the slow approach to the opposite shore. The Wan Chai Pier, in its third incarnation, is still the embarkation point for that experience. The pier itself may be new. The crossing is not.