The 281-unit housing development coming to 6700 Pacific Coast Hwy. is officially underway. Demolition has begun on the Congressional Place office building, which greeted drivers for decades crossing the Orange-to-Los Angeles County line on Pacific Coast Highway. Now, a few steel beams remain of the office building as crews prepare the structure’s sloping foundation.
It is one of three major housing projects that will alter the highway’s gateway into Alamitos Bay.
So what is going to be built at 6700 Pacific Coast Hwy.?
Congressional Place was sold for $41M back in 2022. (This was just five years after the site was sold to ValueRock Realty for $24M.) The project will bring 281 units to the corner of PCH and Studebaker. And that includes 17 studios, 161 one-bedrooms, 85 two-bedrooms, and 18 three-bedrooms. 13 of those units will be reserved for very-low-income households (thanks to Long Beach’s inclusionary ordinance). Overall? The building will reach a height of just over 85 feet under state density bonus laws.
The development is being framed as a sort of gateway to Long Beach. After all, it’s one of the first things people will see as they come over the bridge from Seal Beach. And Holland Partner Group, the team behind the project, is leaning into that visibility: Retail will activate the corner at Studebaker, and a mural by local artists will span the PCH frontage. A fitness center will also be included in the plans.
Wait—they can make a building as high as the one proposed for 6700 Pacific Coast Hwy.?
The project faced pushback from three groups claiming it needed a full environmental review. It was ultimately shot down by the City Council, which allowed the project to move forward. Given its placement on the San Gabriel River—not the coast—it does not have to face the California Coastal Commission, the entity that oversees development on our shoreline. The groups cited concerns about traffic, greenhouse gas emissions, and conflicts with local design standards, especially with its height.
Arguers pointed specifically to the Southeast Area Specific Plan (SEASP). Adopted in 2017, the plan caps building height at three stories at the intersection of Studebaker and Pacific Coast Highway. Heights limits were instituted to create a “gateway” of sorts into the city rather than immediate, tall structures. But city planners pushed back Tuesday, saying the project qualifies for a state-granted height waiver due to its inclusion of affordable units, solar installations, and a public art component that will face PCH. Ultimately, they emphasized, Long Beach has no authority to deny those kinds of density bonuses.
The altering facade of PCH’s gateway into Alamitos Bay will be, in the least, grandeur.
The demolition of 6700 Pacific Coast Hwy. comes on the heels of two other major housing developments coming to the area: Onni Group’s nearly $68 million purchase of the adjacent Marina Shores shopping center at 6500 Pacific Coast Highway—another site slated for residential redevelopment.Â
This larger Marina Shores project—led by Onni, the company behind the towering Onni East Village project that spans Long Beach Boulevard between Broadway and 3rd Street—was previously home to anchor tenant Whole Foods, which has since relocated to the neighboring 2nd+PCH retail complex. With a Petco and an empty grocery store—in combination with the Southeast Area Specific Plan, which encourages residential development in the area—a sale was bound to happen: In late 2021, when real estate firm Newmark announced that Onni had purchased the 6.2-acre complex for $67.9M.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco-based firm Carmel Partners has deviated from its originally proposed 380-unit project in both size and aesthetic, raising the number of units by ten and altering the building’s proposed color, overhang decor, and unit patio spaces. The building will remain six stories, as well as retain its 17 affordable units, while expanding the ground-floor retail space to 5,351 square feet (up from 4,800 in the previous iteration).
