Construction crews are nearing completion on the massive, five-structure, 5.6-acre-spread development that is the commercial-meets-residential Alexan West End. Leasing signs are up, and with them, the building is proving that podium-style buildings don’t have to be uninspiring structures that mimic nearly every other residential project in DTLB.
With a sweeping brick façade mirrored by sweeping U shapes in between the buildings two mini-towers, the project makes for a great entrance into DTLB coming off of Broadway on the 710. And with it, immediately distinguishes itself against the array of podium siblings—like The Magnolia, AMLI Park, The Pacific, Volta…—and falls more into the category of making the Downtown feel architecturally unique—like The Aster or ONNI East Village.
“Throughout the ‘60s, 70s, and ‘80s, this area was built up as an office building district,” architect Alan Pullman of Studio One Eleven told the DTLB Alliance. “After 5PM, it became a bit empty because it was a mono-use area. We’re turning a commercial district with no evening or weekend activities into a mixed-use district that can be alive 18 hours a day.”
Meanwhile, nearly all wood framing is complete on the other structures—with the middle structure ready for its facade treatment—moving progress forward on the largest residential development under construction for Long Beach.
They are working on the project’s easternmost podium buildings—also called “five-over-one” buildings—where a cement foundation serves as the base for the wooden frames above it, a popular design choice for low-rise, fairly low density apartment complexes. Meanwhile, the proposed 30-story tower is in a state of flux with future funding needed.
Southwest corner of Broadway and Maine Avenue: Aug. 2024 versus Oct. 2026. Photos by Brian Addison.
Finally: Why did this project take so long to get going?
The project was entitled years ago, leading people to often wonder why it took so long to finally break ground. And the answer is usually, almost always, money.
Trammell Crow Residential, owned by Crow Holdings, owns the massive parking lot behind the World Trade Center in Downtown. They secured $200M in key capital funding, according to The Real Deal, back in March of 2024, finally kicking off the formal construction process. After a failed attempt to break ground in 2023, that money secured the project’s groundbreaking this year, with potential initial occupancy in May 2026.
But also, as Alan noted in his interview the DTLB Alliance, there was also a shift to make the project more post-pandemic reasonable.
“People want to live in a neighborhood, a place they can relate to,” he said. “So instead of making it one massive 600-unit structure where everything seems the same, we broke it down into four different buildings. Each one has a different color, window treatment, and materiality. That way, a resident can say, ‘I live in the brick building,’ or the pink building, or the orange building. This makes it feel more like a community than a project. We thought residents would appreciate that.”
So what is the Alexan West End project in Downtown Long Beach?
In a neighborhood that historically was low-level, the World Trade Center—seen in the image above as the small blue and bronze building—altered that entirely during its construction in the late 1980s, a note from Studio One Eleven, who led the design of the Alexan West End development. That then spurred larger high-rise construction along Ocean Boulevard, bringing in everything from the Aqua towers to the Shoreline Gateway, what is currently the tallest building in the city.
Alexan West End tried to extend that height: Initial proposals for the project’s tallest building called for 40 stories in 2018—which would have made it the city’s tallest building, surpassing Shoreline Gateway—but Trammel altered its plans in April 2022. It also nixed a proposed 21-story tower attached to the project.
The project’s residential units were also reduced from 756 to 600 due to the aforementioned funding issue.
As a result of this downsizing, the tallest building will stand 30 stories tall and joins five other buildings. Those five buildings will stand seven or eight stories, mimicking, for instance, the plethora of podium buildings in the downtown. This is, of course, minus the nine-story parking garage housing 1,500 parking stalls. (Yes, 1,500 parking stalls and, as a result, being the city’s largest parking garage. This is something some might cheer or, well, absolutely jeer.)
Delays in the project moved groundbreaking from 2023 to 2024
The project spands across a 5.6-acre surface parking lot purchased by Trammel in September of 2022 for $29.5M north of the Hilton Long Beach and World Trade Center in Downtown. Construction on the long-planned development was supposed to begin in 2023 but was pushed to 2024.
The $200M securing, which consists of a $166M construction loan from Kennedy Wilson and a $34M mezzanine loan from an unnamed life insurance company, “allows the developer to get out of the ground when few other projects will and deliver much-needed housing to Long Beach,” according to Scott Peterson of CBRE Capital Markets.
What amenities will there be at the Alexan West End?
In addition to the outdoor aesthetics, the amenities are expansive per their proposal to the City of Long Beach:
- Club lounges with a gourmet kitchen, billiard table, poker room, banquette seating, lounge and dining areas and flat screen TVs;
- Coffee bar lounge with banquette seating;
- Indoor-outdoor fitness studio with an adjoining kids’ entertainment suite and a separate studio for yoga, TRX, and spin with on-demand fitness programming;
- Business center with flat-screen TVs, presentation-ready work areas, a large conference room, communal tables and a lounge area;
- Pool lounge with a coffee bar, kitchenette, games, and seating;
- Pet spa and grooming station;
- Mail center, including Amazon parcel lockers with 24-hour resident access;
- Wi-Fi in all common areas;
- Bike station and storage room;
- Pool and spa deck with an outdoor kitchen, fireplaces, gaming, and daybeds;
- Multiple courtyards with community gardens, fire features, barbecue grills, and game areas;
- Sky deck and room with a fire pit, trellis structure, and seating
Editor’s Note: This article mistakenly reported that The Trammell Crow Company headed this project; we corrected it to reflect the proper developer and owner, Trammell Crow Residential. This article was originally published in March of 2024; it has been continually updated since.
Sssoooo many thoughts on this!
When will corporate housing stop? Make them smaller, easily managed properties that are under one management company but has on-site managers at each property.
When things get big, a lot is easy to overlook. As someone who lives in corporate housing and dealing with a laundry list of troubles, I speak from experience.
I want everyone housed. I want all projects to succeed. Everything crossed that this will be a success.
Where is the affordable housing? Building this type of housing doesn’t help the people of Long Beach in the area of more affordable housing, it brings in people outside of Long Beach. Which compound the problem. We are not adding more housing when we only luxury housing.
I would like to know how someone can sign up for these so called “AFFORDABLE” housing. I sure can’t find anything affordable in Lo g Beach.
** “Given the rapid urbanization and the influx of high-rise constructions, how do you think this will impact the city’s coastal ecosystem and local wildlife, particularly those that rely on the shoreline for habitat and sustenance? Are there any innovative solutions or regulations that could mitigate these potential disruptions?
[…] Overview: Set to be one of the largest residential developments in Long Beach, Alexan West End will feature 600 residential units. The project includes multiple buildings of varying heights, contributing to the city’s vertical growth. Longbeachize+1Urbanize LA+1 […]
Good post! We will be linking to this particularly great post on our site. Keep up the great writing
At a recent City Council meeting, over 100 firefighters and paramedics were in attendance. They described how underfunded and short of necessary vehicles to ensure the safety of the City’s current population of 500,000.
The response time and availability of emergency vehicles is so bad during 911 situations, that they rely on cities like Lakewood and Cerritos for help.
And our Mayor claims that the residents safety is his first priority. I think NOT.