Long Beach Pike: Thinking ‘Small’ for Big Plan : Proposed development will include mixture of uses on the former amusement park site.

When New York architect Stanton Eckstut first arrived in Southern California he was startled by the way the huge regional metropolis--stretching from San Diego to Simi Valley--confounded his typical East Coast prejudices and preconceptions.

“Los Angeles isn’t what everyone says it is,” Eckstut said, still slightly amazed at this discovery after several years. “What struck me most about the place is the way it’s made up of many small pieces.

“It’s not only a collection of small cities that have grown together into a vast metropolis; the buildings and neighborhoods within those individual cities are, with few exceptions, small scale.”

The concept of smallness provided Eckstut with the basic clue he needed to approach the design of the development master plan for the 13-acre parcel of land owned by Pike Properties Associates on Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach.

Eckstut’s plan has been approved by the Long Beach Planning Commission, and the City Council gave its enthusiastic backing last week. If the plan is passed by the state Coastal Commission in July, ground will be broken for Phase 1 of the Pike Properties development in spring, 1990.

The proposed $1-billion development, when fully built out over a projected 20-year span, will provide a mixture of uses, including 1.5 million square feet of office space, 1,000 residential units, 500 hotel rooms and 200,000 square feet of retail space.

The development’s “density”--the quantity of building as a ratio of its ground area--is 5.5 to 1, or less than half the maximum allowed in downtown Los Angeles.

Mix of Building Uses

“We did not decide on the maximum density and then plan back from there,” said Pike Properties developer Wayne Ratkovitch. “Rather, we worked from the ground up, starting with Stanton’s concept of smallness, to achieve this mix and level of building uses.”

Like Southern Californians everywhere, many Long Beach residents are worried about the rapid pace of development in their city. Citizen activists are concerned about the traffic gridlock that the relatively high level of building density projects such as the Pike will generate when fully built out over the next 20 years.

“When the citizens of Long Beach understand the blank check that is being given to the Pike project . . . a widespread outcry will develop,” said Marc Coleman, a member of Long Beach Area Citizens Involved.

Eckstut conceded that “a city’s growing pains are often agonizing. In New York’s Battery Park City, which I helped plan, a run-down section of Manhattan was revived, at the cost of higher traffic levels. It’s a universal problem in urban renewal that can’t be easily solved.”

Long Beach officials already require developers to encourage car pooling and the use of public transport in an attempt to reduce the number of cars entering and leaving downtown during peak hours. A consulting firm has been hired to design a computer model to predict traffic tie-ups generated by development.

Traffic Impact

“We have done our level best, within the context of the planned expansion of downtown Long Beach, to ease the traffic impact of our development,” Ratkovitch said. “The plan is oriented toward the pedestrian, and cars are restricted to the periphery of the project.”

Ratkovitch joined with the West Coast arm of Columbia, Md., developer James Rouse’s Enterprise Development Co. to form Pike Properties Associates. The Enterprise Development Co. was founded by Rouse in 1981, after he retired as head of the Rouse Co., which pioneered the concept of waterfront festival marketplaces in cities such as Boston and Baltimore in the 1970s.

The Pike property occupies the site of the famous amusement park popular between the two world wars. In its heyday the Pike hosted the hair-raising Cyclone Racer roller coaster and daredevil stunt men like Reckless Ross, who rode the walls of the Motordome on his motorcycle to the delight and terror of the crowds. The Walk of 1,000 Lights was a famous midway lined with stalls, shows and other attractions.

Upstaged by more sophisticated theme parks, such as Disneyland, the Pike fell into decay and finally closed in 1978.

Major Trading Port

In the last 10 years, spurred by Long Beach’s growing importance as a major Pacific Rim trading port, almost $2 billion has been invested in commercial development in the downtown area.

“In 1975 we were essentially flat on our backs,” said City Manager James Hankla. “Today everyone is knocking at our door.”

The Pike site is pivotal to contemporary Long Beach in several ways. It sits between the poorer West Side and the affluent East Side with its parks, golf courses and marinas. And it lies at the junction between the old city grid north of Ocean Boulevard and the free-form layout of the land to the south, which falls toward the shoreline and the parked attractions of the Queen Mary and the Spruce Goose.

Eckstut was aware of Long Beach’s original, often frustrated, desire to develop its shoreline as a place lined with promenades and parks.

A century ago, when the city was founded, the entire water’s edge was to be public. After World War I, efforts were made to develop a “City Beautiful” plan of tree-lined boulevards similar to the type that created an imposing civic core for Pasadena.

Undistinguished Development

But the destruction wrought by the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, and the post-World War II ravages of indiscriminate development that razed many historic buildings, left the city and its shoreline in a sad state.

In the 1960s and early ‘70s the design standard of development was generally agreed to be undistinguished, resulting in architectural nonentities like the convention center.

“What survived in Long Beach of real value were the small things,” Eckstut said. “The smaller neighborhoods and community shopping streets, the Spanish Colonial houses and condominiums on the ocean front. . . .

“In planning the Pike, we have built upon this heritage of the small and the familiar to create a user-friendly mini-city on the edge of town.”

Eckstut’s master plan features an assemblage of “small places” in the form of courtyards and urban patios knitted together by pedestrian walkways protected by closed inward vistas alternated with outward views toward the ocean front.

The Walk of 1,000 Lights is reincarnated as the main pedestrian thoroughfare. Lined with shops and outdoor cafes, the Walk is focused on the Mediterranean silhouette of the historic Ocean Center Building on Pine Avenue. Other walkways weave through the planned buildings like pedestrian canals.

Mid-Rise Character

Along Ocean Boulevard the plan respects the mid-rise character of the street. Buildings here will be limited to 12 stories, rising to a maximum of 30 stories along Seaside Way to the south of the site. The intention is that the profile of the Pike’s skyline, when fully built out, will not overwhelm the boulevard’s established scale.

As a pedestrian-oriented design the Pike development restricts cars to the edges of the site. Parking for up to 6,000 vehicles will be located in garages accessible from Seaside Way to the south and Magnolia Avenue at the western end.