Developers Strike Deal With CityPlace
The developer of a $90-million shopping center and housing project called CityPlace that will replace a failed mall in downtown Long Beach has struck a deal with a Los Angeles-based company and a Long Beach firm to develop the project’s 221 apartments.
Developers Diversified Realty Corp. of Ohio has sold the rights to develop the apartments to a joint venture of Los Angeles-based PCS Development and Long Beach-based Urban Pacific Partners, which will build the apartment through a partnership called Pine Avenue Housing Partners.
The apartments will be part of CityPlace, an eight-square-block development--bounded by 3rd and 6th streets, Pine Avenue and Long Beach Boulevard--that will replace Long Beach Plaza mall.
The apartment portion of the project will include 15 studio, 124 one-bedroom and 82 two-bedroom units ranging from 600 to 1,300 square feet and renting for $1,150 to $1,850 per month, said Todd Shaw, managing director at PCS.
Construction of the apartments will begin in March and is expected to be finished by early 2003. The units will be in five separate buildings atop ground floor retail stores.
PCS is buying the rights to build apartments above the retail space, Shaw said, in a deal that is similar to a purchase of air rights by Post Properties, the apartment developer of the Paseo Colorado retail and housing complex in Pasadena.
Orange-based Architects Orange is the designer for the apartments, which will be built by general contractor PCS/Cal-Mor, an affiliate of PCS Development. The overall CityPlace project was designed by Jerde Partnership of Venice. Foster City-based Lincoln Properties was named as the developer of the apartments, but Lincoln is no longer involved in the project, Shaw said.
Besides the 200,000 square feet of apartments, CityPlace will include 450,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, 70 for-sale loft condominiums and a 138-room all-suite hotel. Tenants will include Albertson’s, Sav-On, Nordstrom Rack, Wal-Mart and Ross Dress for Less.
Construction is underway on the retail portion of the center, which is scheduled to open next spring.
CityPlace is one of two large projects under development in Long Beach by Developers Diversified. The other is Queensway Bay, a $100-million entertainment and retail center on 18 acres of city-owned land south of Ocean Boulevard near the Long Beach Convention Center.
The Queensway Bay project is two years behind schedule, according to Times reports, because two bankrupt movie theater chains dropped out as anchor tenants last year, breaking other leases in the center that were contingent on the presence of the theaters.
