The Long Beach Redevelopment Agency will take a major step toward filling a void in the city’s downtown this week when it narrows the list of bidders for development of the Promenade, a strategically located property running adjacent to the city’s trendy Pine Avenue.
More than a dozen bids were submitted for the project, which could be valued at as much as $150 million by the time it is completed.
The site is comprised of four distinct parcels forming a strip approximately two blocks long and one block wide, containing more than 200,000 square feet of undeveloped real estate that now consists largely of parking lots and a wide walkway where a weekly farmer’s market is held.
Rob Zur Schmiede, the redevelopment agency’s project officer with responsibility for downtown, said the finalists will be asked for more specific plans and will be given detailed information outlining city building code and zoning regulations. Final selection of the winning bid is to be made in July.
“We want to get this moving,” said Zur Schmiede, adding that he and his colleagues hope the Promenade project will be completed by the end of 2003, if not sooner. “We have a lot of quality proposals and we’re ready to go.”
Within close proximity to the project site is Long Beach’s extensive CityPlace shopping and residential development bordering on the north, its busy Convention Center complex and Performing Arts Center a block to the south, its emerging East Village arts district a few blocks to the east and Pine Avenue’s vibrant social scene one block to the west.
Spurred by an all-out city effort to get the Promenade project underway, after years of starts and stops, a number of developers lined up to submit proposals by the April 30 deadline. Some firms have made bids for all four parcels; others for one, two or three parcels.
Among the bidders who submitted proposals were Trammell Crow Residential, John Laing Homes of Van Nuys, Irvine’s Legacy Partners and Lyon Realty Advisors Inc. of Newport Beach.
Appealing to urban dwellers
CIM Management of Hollywood is proposing to develop all four parcels. Its plans call for 250 to 450 residential loft units along with retail space in a series of two- to six-story buildings.
“The location is terrific, wonderful,” said John Given, a senior vice president at CIM. “With it being so close to so many things that are on the upswing in Long Beach, it’s amazing to me that it’s still sitting there like that. This area can be the link that connects the whole downtown area.”
CIM and other bidders envision marketing residences in the area to a couple of groups often overlooked in the California real estate market.
“There are two core markets that are tremendously under-served people in their 20s and 30s looking to buy a place for the first time and people who would rather be urban dwellers, living in downtown-like environments,” Given said.
Following a master plan that was initially drafted three years ago, the redevelopment agency is expected to decide in favor of proposals that would focus largely on a mixed use of residential and retail. Several hotel projects also are under consideration, as is a proposed robotics museum featuring a collection of moving figures from the early 20th century to the present day.
According to Zur Schmiede, any successful proposal would have to provide enough parking to handle not only the traffic it generates, but to help accommodate Pine Avenue-area merchants who depend on the parking now available on the Promenade site. A program that provides free or low-cost parking for customers of local eateries and other businesses likely would be continued in some form, he said.
“Parking is definitely a priority,” Zur Schmiede said, calling attention to a parking survey done in conjunction with the Downtown Long Beach Associates business group. “We don’t want to put anybody out of business.”
Long-term impact
Decisions being made in the ensuing weeks will have impact well into the 21st century, said Kraig Kojian, executive director of Downtown Long Beach Associates. An example is the poorly conceived Long Beach Plaza mall, opened in the early 1970s with the goal of revitalizing Long Beach’s then-struggling urban core.
But instead of pioneering a rejuvenation, the aesthetically unpleasing mall stumbled almost from the start and ended up actually being a detriment to a downtown renaissance. The mall recently was razed to make way for the CityPlace project.
“It’s very important for us to take advantage of the momentum we have right now in developing the Promenade,” Kojian said. “But it’s even more important to make the right decisions for the long term. It’s easy to build something for five or 10 years. The challenge is to build something that takes future generations into consideration.”
