The 118-year-old office building in the heart of downtown Long Beach, which withstood the 1933 earthquake, has had various uses as a bank building and office space building, but will soon become a much-needed building. It may be reborn as a residence.
Pinelux Associates, the owner of the former First National Bank building at 115 Pine Avenue, is seeking approval to convert the historic listed building into 70 residential units, 11 of which are residential units. It will be reserved for low-income households.
The owners purchased the building at auction in 2014 for $10.9 million.
“Vacancy rates for some commercial buildings have increased since the pandemic,” said Austin Metoyer, president and CEO of the Downtown Long Beach Alliance. He said “adaptive reuse” has been happening in Long Beach since at least 2012, and “this is certainly an opportunity to breathe new life into a new neighborhood.”
At least five adaptive reuse projects have been undertaken at the First National Bank Building.
The historic Ocean Center recently opened, as well as 200 West Ocean and Edison Lofts in downtown Long Beach.
A new project called “400 Ocean Gate,” owned by Long Beach law firm Keesal Young & Logan, will convert the building into 200 residential units. An additional plan to build 75 spaces in the adjacent multi-story parking garage is also proposed.
Adaptive reuse, which involves repurposing buildings for purposes other than their original purpose, has been successful in Long Beach, but Metoyer said it’s not the only solution.
“This is definitely going to be a tool to help revitalize downtowns and downtowns across the state,” Metoye said. “This is not all about solving some of the challenges that we have.”
Downtown Long Beach’s challenges include crime, vandalism, and homelessness at higher levels than most other Long Beach communities.
“I think it’s a great idea because there are just empty buildings up there,” said Misty Stella, who has lived in Long Beach for nine years. “The more people who live in this area, the more businesses there will be and the more vibrancy it will bring to downtown.”
This will help the City of Long Beach meet the state’s housing goal of building approximately 26,000 homes by 2029. To reach that goal, the city would need to build about 3,300 units each year.
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