New building projects continue to spring up in Long Beach, despite the hurdles many developers have had to overcome during the coronavirus pandemic — but one forthcoming project in the city will be built specifically because of the crisis.
Mayor Robert Garcia highlighted dozens of up-and-coming developments in his virtual “Building a Better Long Beach” presentation on Wednesday, March 24, and one got special attention: A COVID-19 memorial.
More than 900 residents have died from coronavirus-related causes so far and that death toll will continue climbing. The public health crisis has been, Garcia said, the deadliest tragedy in Long Beach’s history.
“We’re going to build projects and homes and retail,” he said, “but there is probably nothing as important as building a memorial to remember and to recognize all the people that we have lost across our city.”
Garcia said the memorial is still in the early planning phases, and Long Beach will assemble a committee of residents, artists and community leaders to come up with a proposal for it over the next year. Ron Arias, the former head of the city’s health department, has agreed to chair that committee.
It will be, Garcia said, “an amazing and thoughtful COVID-19 memorial project.
“We want to memorialize it in a way that’s important to the community,” he added. “We want people to know that what happened and what continues to happen matters.”
While the memorial was the biggest announcement of Wednesday’s presentation, it wasn’t the sole focus. Garcia also spoke about the thousands of new housing units that are coming to the city and the major new projects that will be built in the coming years.
There’s currently $380 million worth of projects that have been permitted or are under construction, he said, and the city is on track to have built more than 11,000 housing units in his two terms as mayor.
North Long Beach, he said, has recently completed developments like Uptown Commons and the new Atlantic Farms Bridge Housing Community for people who are homeless. He also highlighted forthcoming projects there, like the proposed The Beat, 5823-5893 Atlantic Ave., which will include new apartments, 86 3-story townhomes and art installations to transform the corridor.
He touted the burst of new housing projects in Central and West Long Beach, which are adding hundreds of units of affordable and market-rate housing to the neighborhoods.
“There is a lot of housing happening in the central part of our city,” Garcia said. “There is an enormous need for housing there.
“When you overlay our work around poverty and our work around supporting working families, the need is greatest in Central and Midtown,” he added, “so we have to be mindful that we’re creating housing opportunities, support for people experiencing homelessness and also giving people the opportunity to buy that first house, for a young family to be able to purchase a home in our city.”
East Long Beach, meanwhile, has a slate of various new developments that Garcia highlighted, such as the recently approved Belmont Beach Aquatics Center and the Parkside North Residence Hall that’s under construction, which will offer 476 dorm beds for Cal State Long Beach students.
And in the downtown area, several large projects are on the horizon, the mayor said, including Shoreline Gateway, the 35-story tower — set to be Long Beach’s tallest building — that is currently under construction, and the Broadway Block, which will include a 23-story and a 7-story building with 432 housing units that Garcia said will transform the downtown.
“You will be able to walk and feel connected from Pine (Avenue) or the West Gateway all the way down Broadway, down First (Street) going into the East Village,” he said, “so the downtown is going to really get connected through this massive, full-block development.
“This project also will include some affordable housing and some gallery space for the university, for Cal State Long Beach,” Garcia added. “It includes, again, some amazing food opportunities, but most importantly, it’s all the people that are going to live there, and they’re going make the downtown just, really, a stronger place.”
While Garcia expressed excitement about all of the projects he discussed on Wednesday, he said perhaps the most significant aspect of the development scene in Long Beach right now is the fact that it’s been able to rebound from the coronavirus-induced recession.
“During the pandemic, we weren’t sure where these projects were going,” he said. “Some projects stalled. Other projects were trying to get financing again, and the fact that we’ve been able to retain almost — most of our projects — almost of all our projects we’ve been able to maintain, to keep going, to help them getting financing is really, I think, a credit to the teams that are putting these projects on and to our city team for getting them across the finish line.”
