Vice Mayor Rex Richardson and developers celebrated the groundbreaking of a new townhome development in North Long Beach today.
Nestled between a furniture store and a carpet store on Artesia Boulevard, the lot has been vacant for nearly two decades after a fire destroyed the original building.
Going in its place will be a townhouse development from Urban Pacific Group that will contain five units intended for multigenerational families—each with five bedrooms and five bathrooms. One unit will be deed-restricted for low-income housing.
The townhome project is the third groundbreaking that Urban Pacific has undertaken in the past year.
“Now what you see with this incredible townhouse project, you’re gonna see modern architecture that’s gonna improve the standard of architecture here on [the] Artesia Boulevard corridor,” Richardson said.
This is the first development of its kind in North Long Beach as part of the UPLAN Zoning Initiative—otherwise known as the North Long Beach Uptown Plan— aimed at “making it easier to build things like housing and grocery stores and healthcare and more difficult to build things like liquor stores and nuisance motels,” Richardson said.
The new units have a modernized Mediterranean style of design, and Richardson hopes that adding denser housing options on Artesia Boulevard will stimulate some of the local businesses on the street.
“The project is a contemporary design,” said Scott Choppin, founder and CEO of Urban Pacific Group. “It’ll be really, I think, a fresh and outstanding new addition to the Artesia Boulevard corridor.”
Just a few blocks away from the development is the popular Uptown Commons complex that opened in 2020.
“We look forward to welcoming new residents to North Long Beach community when this project is done,” Richardson said.
The townhouses are expected to finish construction and begin receiving residents by next summer.