Long Beach officials celebrated the opening of the tallest building in Long Beach on Wednesday, March 30 with a sunset ribbon cutting on the rooftop of Shoreline Gateway.
Towering at 417 feet tall, the Shoreline Gateway is now the tallest building in Long Beach, beating the previous record-setter, One World Trade Center, which is 397 feet tall.
The 35-story Shoreline Gateway complex is a mixed-use development with 315 residential units and 6,500 square feet of commercial space with a five-level parking garage underneath.
“There were so many obstacles. I know we’re talking about how it took 18 years, but that’s because this was hard,” Long Beach City Manager Tom Modica said during the grand opening of the building. “There were so many times when this project failed and then got resuscitated and brought back.”
The building was developed by Ledcor Development LP and Anderson Pacific LLC as a companion building to The Current, a 17-story building next door that was completed in 2016.
Shoreline Gateway’s luxury apartments start at $2,960 a month for a 588 square-foot studio apartment and its top two-bed-room apartments go for just under $16,000, according to floor plans available on the building’s website.
For that price, residents gain access to a plethora of amenities.
The building boasts the tallest pool and spa on the west coast along with an observation deck with views of Orange County, Catalina Island and parts of Los Angeles. Other amenities inside the building include a full gym with yoga and fitness classes, a business center, a bike station with complimentary bikes, a 500-gallon jellyfish display and a pet spa.
“I love the amenities,” said Cristina Gonzales who moved into the building in September 2021 with her fiance when leases first opened up.. “We love that it’s, you know, luxury living in Long Beach.”
Gonzales and her fiance Rob Flores spend a lot of their time on the third floor patio of the building for what they call ‘barbeque Wednesdays’ where they cook and look towards the iconic Villa Riveria building across the street.
Another resident that moved in in February, Gary Epps, spends a lot of his time on the observation deck on the 34th floor.
“My view is amazing, we get to see the sunset every night,” said Epps, who lives on one of the upper floors of the building that faces towards the west. “We actually gotten the point where we’re able to count it down, because we see it so much. I mean it’s so great.”
The building took over the site of a former VHS rental store which the City was able to take over and allocate the space for redevelopment.
“We’re sitting on the site of a former video market,” Modica said.“On the first floor they had a lot of the popular movies. In the basement they had things I won’t mention, it was the whole basement full of it. Then City took ownership of it and we had the property leveled and that’s really what redevelopment is designed to do with these types of projects.”
According to the latest Regional Housing Needs Assessment, the city needs to make plans for the development of 26,502 more units of housing by 2029. The new apartments at the Shoreline Gateway complex will contribute 315 units to the City’s required 11,156 above-moderate level units according to the housing requirements plan.
“Shoreline Gateway has taken Long Beach to new heights literally, transforming our skyline and forever that will be the case,” said Long Beach City Councilmember Mary Zendejas. “I’m so excited.”
