Joint venture finalizes purchase of large-scale open-air development in downtown Long Beach after previously acquiring property loan
A partnership between Turnbridge Equities (Turnbridge) and Waterford Property Company (Waterford), along with Monument Square Investment Group, has acquired City Place Long Beach, a 14-acre, large-scale open-air retail, office, and mixed-used development property in the heart of downtown Long Beach, California.
The partnership first acquired the loan on City Place Long Beach at the end of 2020 and has now reached an agreement to take over ownership of the property. City Place has a storied history in Long Beach, having once been the home of the Long Beach Plaza Mall, an enclosed shopping mall built in 1982. The mall was demolished in 2002 to make way for City Place, an open-air shopping district anchored by several big-box tenants, emblematic of the region’s large-scale retail development trends in the early 2000s. With the rise of e-commerce and emerging consumer preference for experiential brick and mortar retail, the new owners see an opportunity to reimagine City Place as a vibrant, mixed-use district.
“We couldn’t be more excited for the opportunity to work with the City and community to create a transformative project that everyone will be proud to call their own,” said Michael Gazzano, Managing Director of West Coast Investments for Turnbridge Equities. “Downtown Long Beach has excellent fundamentals, and this site offers great scale to go along with exceptional urban characteristics including walkability, access to transit, and great pedestrian experience along The Promenade and side streets. We believe these characteristics stand the test of time and will serve as the cornerstones of City Place for years to come.”
Sean Rawson, co-founder of Waterford Property Company and long-time Long Beach resident, understands the opportunity the property presents from a local’s perspective. “City Place is the preeminent development opportunity in downtown Long Beach. Our goal is to bring a cohesive vision to the site that provides Long Beach residents with a transformative project and continues the Mayor and City Council’s vision for development downtown,” Rawson said.
The partnership believes City Place represents an equally intriguing placemaking opportunity, as downtown Long Beach is in the midst of a renaissance with an influx of new ground up and conversion residential and hotel projects underway. “What struck us about Long Beach was the quality of life that’s available to residents of this community,” adds Gazzano. “The greater downtown is a tapestry of high-character historic neighborhoods like the East Village Arts District and Retro Row on 4th Street, along with the higher-density emerging neighborhoods in central downtown. Long Beach is one of the few coastal markets in Southern California where a walkable historic downtown meets a world-class waterfront, offering an urban experience on par with places like Santa Monica and San Diego at a more reasonable price.”
While the downtown Long Beach office market primarily caters to government and port-related businesses, the residential base has significantly deepened in recent years with the development of Douglas Park, a four-million-square-foot corporate office park occupied by a bevy of engineering and technical firms such as Virgin Orbit and Mercedes Benz, and housing thousands of high-wage workers many of whom choose to live and recreate locally.
The partnership plans to start working immediately to stabilize the asset as the country begins to recover from the impacts of the global pandemic, and help existing tenants get back up on their feet, while working with the local community to learn what their needs are and how the property can best respond. “All of the current tenants will remain and have a home at the project,” said Rawson. “Many are small businesses, and we want to make sure they survive. It’s the right thing to do.”
Waterford is one of the most active investors in Long Beach, having acquired and repositioned over 15 multifamily projects in the market since 2015, in addition to spearheading the multi-million-dollar repositioning of Downtown Long Beach’s iconic World Trade Center. Turnbridge is a national investment and development firm with a multi-billion-dollar portfolio. The firm is widely known for developing mixed-use projects across the country, such as Music Lane, a prominent 320,000-square-foot development in Austin TX, which includes retail, office, and hospitality.
