Shaheen Sadeghi, best known for The Lab Anti-Mall, The Camp and the Anaheim Packing District in Orange County, is planning his first venture in Los Angeles County.

The project, dubbed The ARTery, is a development of 14 townhomes in Long Beach with facilities for artists. One of the townhomes will be designated as affordable housing. The cost of the townhomes is not yet known.

Long Beach-based Studio One Eleven is designing the project with Sadeghi’s LAB Holding.

“This is a part of a much bigger position or project,” Sadeghi said of the ARTery townhomes. “We’ve been wanting to do things outside of Orange County, and Long Beach seemed to be a natural next step. The city and the city council in charge of the district were really helpful and instrumental.”

Each townhome will be three stories with a ground-floor garage, workspace and powder room. The properties will be roughly 1,200 square feet with a 225-square-foot garage, a ground-floor patio, balconies and a rooftop deck.

The development will consist of three buildings surrounding a courtyard that can be used to house exhibits and hold events.

“The ARTery opens opportunities for emerging artists and makers while uplifting its surrounding neighborhood and providing much-needed housing. Creating a courtyard setting gives it an even deeper social dimension,” Studio One Eleven Senior Principal Michael Bohn said in a statement.

Sadeghi said the project is geared toward a creative crowd that can take advantage of the community’s artistic offerings. But the company will not be looking at resumes.

“This idea of the ARTery is bringing people together,” Sadeghi said. “This project was designed to make people interact.”

The property will be located at 5721 Lime Ave. in North Long Beach. The site is currently an empty lot. The new building area will be just under 20,000 square feet.

Construction for the project is expected to start early next year and take nine months to complete.

Sadeghi said Covid-19 has not delayed the project.

“We are trying to take a long-term view, and we think the next 12 to 18 months we will hopefully get back to some kind of a normal. We are trying to keep a lot of these projects moving forward,” he said.

The ARTery is part of a larger planned development by LAB Holding called The Beat.

Near the ARTery site LAB Holding purchased roughly a dozen storefronts that it will redesign with Studio One Eleven.

It will be called The ARTyard.

Sadeghi the company was “concerned about leasing.”

“There will be some time before entrepreneurial tenants will be comfortable to sign a lease,” he said. “Covid-19 has really hit the pause button from the leasing standpoint for now.”

A series of empty lots north of the site will be created into the ARTlawn development, which will have “pocket parks” and retail.

Sadeghi said LAB Holding purchased more than 50 lots from the city for the overarching project.

“Our firm has really been focused on going into these areas that may have been forgotten,” he said. “We felt there was an opportunity to go into Long Beach and tap into the community and tap into the culture. We are convinced that every neighborhood has culture.”

“If we are able to execute on the plan, it will have a significant impact on rejuvenating this area,” he added.

Sadeghi’s Orange County projects are known for being hip, with unique tenants and not the chain stores that populate other shopping malls or strip malls.

And despite the firm’s decision to do a residential project, it is not moving away from its roots, but expanding them.

“Our focus has always been retail and restaurants,” Sadeghi said. “We have been wanting to do residential for some time. We feel that from an industry standpoint, much of the divisions and the walls have been taken down. Our focus is next-generation projects as opposed to limiting ourselves to