Long Beach Planning Commission OK’s 900-unit mixed-use housing development.
The project, dubbed Mosaic, will occupy a 5.5-acre portion of the CityPlace Shopping Center in downtown Long Beach.
By KRISTY HUTCHINGS | khutchings@scng.com |
PUBLISHED: January 27, 2023 at 2:20 p.m. | UPDATED: January 27, 2023 at 2:21 p.m.
A portion of downtown Long Beach’s vacant CityPlace Shopping Center will eventually be demolished and replaced with three eight-story residential buildings boasting 900 combined apartments, now that it has received Planning Commission approval.
The commission recently OK’d the 5.5-acre housing project, dubbed Mosaic.
CityPlace’s storied history in Long Beach dates back to the early 1980s when it was originally developed as the Long Beach Plaza Mall. That traditional indoor mall was home to three large anchor tenants and about 676,000 square feet of retail space.
But it struggled to compete with other malls across the Southern California region and was demolished in 1999.
The property was taken over by Developers Diversified Realty in 2002, which built out about 450,000 square feet of commercial space and gave it the CityPlace moniker. A downtown-style Walmart opened in the new development as its main tenant, but that concept also struggled to attract customers and it shut down permanently in 2016.
“The site as it currently exists is significantly underutilized and underperforming,” a recent staff report said, “compared to the development potential allowed at the site.”
The portion of CityPlace south of Fourth Street, which will not be impacted by the new project, has undergone a series of renovations since 2017 and has been renamed The Streets.
In 2020, three companies — Turnbridge Equities, the Waterford Property Company, and Monument Square Investment Group — acquired the entire 14-acre CityPlace and set about redeveloping the property.
“City Place is the preeminent development opportunity in downtown Long Beach,” Waterford cofounder Sean Rawson said in a 2020 news release. “Our goal is to bring a cohesive vision to the site that provides Long Beach residents with a transformative project and continues the Mayor and City Council’s vision for development downtown.”
Now, that goal is closer to becoming a reality.
The Planning Commission’s Jan. 19 approval of the Mosaic site plans is a major step forward for the project, though it’ll be at least a year before construction begins on the project, according to a Development Services Department spokesperson.
The Mosaic development will go between Fourth and Sixth Streets along Long Beach Boulevard, according to a city staff report, and will house three eight-story apartment buildings.
“The project site consists only of the former Walmart and other retail buildings between Fourth and Fifth Street(s),” Long Beach planner Scott Kinsey said during the Jan. 19 commission meeting. “The buildings south of Fourth Street — including Ross, Studio One Eleven, and Portuguese Bend — will not be impacted.”
Current programming at the Promenade, including the farmer’s market, is expected to remain in operation after the project is completed.
The Mosaic will also build out about 38,000 square feet of retail space, the bulk of which will be on the ground floor of each apartment building. The project will include a two-story, 2,400 square-foot standalone retail pavilion along Fifth Street and The Promenade North as well, according to the city staff report.
The developers also plan to close vehicular traffic on The Promenade between Fourth and Fifth streets to create a new pedestrian thoroughfare and event space — with an additional pedestrian paseo planned between Fifth and Sixth streets along Pine Avenue, which is currently an impenetrable “superblock.”
Those changes will “enhance the pedestrian-friendliness of the development and surrounding area,” the staff report said.
It will help reduce traffic in the area, with Mosaic also bringing an additional 1,383 vehicle parking spaces and 138 bicycle parking slots.
The project will provide 54 affordable apartment units under Long Beach’s inclusionary housing ordinance, which requires 6% of for-rent housing units in new developments be reserved for renters in the very low median area income level, the staff report said.
Construction on the project, though, is still a ways off, according to Development Services spokesperson Richard de la Torre. Long Beach’s Planning Bureau must wait for a local appeal period regarding the project’s approval to end before the developers can embark on the next steps of the process, which includes submitting an application for building permits.
“Assuming there are no appeals or legal challenges,” de la Torre said in a Thursday, Jan. 26, email, “the (building permit) application process would be expected to take at least a year on a mixed-income housing project of this size before there are shovels in the ground.”