A 118-year-old office building in the heart of downtown Long Beach that withstood the 1933 quake has found various lives as a bank building, and office space building and soon might be transformed into much-needed housing.
Pinelux Associates, owners of the former First National Bank building at 115 Pine Ave., is asking for approval to turn the historically registered building into 70 residential units — 11 which would be reserved for low-income households.
The owners purchased the building at auction for $10.9 million in 2014.
“Since the pandemic, we have seen vacant rates for some of our commercial buildings go up,” said Austin Metoyer, President and CEO of the Downtown Long Beach Alliance. He said “adaptive reuse” has been used in Long Beach since at least 2012. “It’s certainly an opportunity to bring new life to a new area.”
There have been at least five adaptive-reuse projects with the First National Bank Building.
The historic Ocean Center opened up recently as well as 200 West Ocean and the Edison lofts in downtown Long Beach.
A new project called 400 OceanGate, which used to be owned by Long Beach law firm Keesal, Young & Logan, will convert the building into a 200-unit residential space. An additional project to construct 75 units on the adjoining three-story parking lot is also proposed.
While “adaptive reuse,” which means converting a building to a use other than its original purpose, has seen success in Long Beach, Metoyer says it’s not the only solution.
“It’s definitely going to be a tool to help revitalize downtown and downtown around the state,” said Metoyer. “It’s not going to be the be-all to solving some of the challenges that we have.”
Downtown Long Beach’s challenges include crime, vandalism and homelessness at a higher level than most other Long Beach communities.
“I think it’s a great idea because it’s just these empty buildings that are sitting there,” said Misty Stella, who has lived in Long Beach for nine years. “With more people living here in the area, it will bring more businesses and just more life to the downtown area.”
It will help Long Beach meet its state housing goals of approximately 26,000 housing units by 2029. To get to that goal, the city needs about 3,300 units built each year.
