A New Look on Horizon for City Skyline

The skyline of downtown Long Beach appears destined for another change with last week’s Planning Commission approval of a 35-story condominium project that would be the tallest building in the city.

Proposed for the site of the demolished Jergins Trust Building, the Ocean Boulevard high-rise would be 425 feet tall, slightly higher than the World Trade Center several blocks to the west.

The condo tower, which still must be approved by the City Council and the California Coastal Commission, won praise even from the planning commissioners who voted against it.

“I think it’s a wonderful project. But I think it’s in the wrong location,” said Nancy Latimer, who opposed a motion to amend the local coastal plan to make way for the $100-million building. Commissioners Patricia Schauer and Elbert Segelhorst also voted no. The motion passed 4-3.

The project, proposed by Century West Development, greatly exceeds the 250-foot height limit set by the coastal plan for that part of downtown, requiring an amendment described by Latimer as “a major policy change.”

It would not be the first, however. The massive residential and commercial development approved for the former Pike Amusement Park site nearby also required a change in the local coastal plan to allow for buildings as tall as 600 feet on that tract.

“It isn’t as if the coastal plan has been held rigid in terms of height,” observed city Planning Director Robert Paternoster, who along with Community Development Director Susan Shick, enthusiastically supported the project.

Paternoster went so far as to call the building “clearly the finest residential project” so far proposed for downtown.

With its 250 units priced between $200,000 and $1.5 million, the Century West building would be one of several luxury towers rising on the south side of Ocean Boulevard. While the office and hotel market is overbuilt, developers are betting that there remains an unfilled niche for high-priced, ocean-view condos.

“There’s such a shortage of high-rise condominiums,” said Century West development associate Peter Mow, whose company conducted a survey two years ago indicating that there was a market for such projects among business executives and professionals.

City officials see the luxury projects as a key to their decade-long struggle to inject life into a downtown that goes dead after dark. “It’s now an eight-hour city,” joked Don Westerland, a Redevelopment Agency member who spoke in favor of the project.

Described by its architect, Tom Landau, as “romantic modernistic,” the building would have elements of the historic Villa Riviera building, as well as a series of setbacks that would give it a tapered effect as it rises to the top.

It would replace a city landmark, the Jergins building, demolished in 1988 after a failed preservation effort, and would tower above another historic landmark, the Ocean Center building on Pine Avenue.

Preservationists have voiced concerns that the new condominium high-rise would put pressure on the owners of the Ocean Center building to tear it down and replace it with something bigger and more profitable.

At Thursday’s planning commission meeting, Shick expressed doubts that would happen. The Ocean Center lot is too small for a big high-rise, she maintained. Moreover, she said, the Redevelopment Agency has struck a deal with Century West that could generate some funds to support historic preservation. If the company makes more than a 20% profit, it will give 15% of any additional profit to the agency for historic preservation.

Tall Buildings

Here is a comparison of the height of the proposed 35-story condominium project in Long Beach to that of several existing buildings situated nearby: New Building: 425 ft.

Landmark Square: 365 ft.

Home Savings: 164 ft.

Ocean Center: 150 ft.

Wells Fargo Plaza: 131.5 ft.

Ramada Hotel: 122.5 ft.

Breakers Hotel: 90 ft.