One of two main design plans shown by developers at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

10:00am | The City Council on Tuesday night approved a motion that will allow plans to move forward for the development of a $1 billion waterfront project in downtown Long Beach.

Current high-rise office buildings along Golden Shore Drive that include offices for the Union Bank of California, Molina Healthcare and the law firm of Keesel, Young & Logan would be demolished to make room for a new development including residential, office, commercial and hotel use on property overlooking the mouth of the Los Angeles River and the Pacific Ocean.

Deputy City Manager Reginald Harrison said the project would provide a maximum of 1,370 residential units, 28,000 square-feet of retail space, and 340,000 square-feet of office uses and 400 hotel rooms. Developers say the plan would focus on creating open space and a scenic downtown skyline.

Long Beach Planning Officer Derek Burnham called the proposed project a “Western gateway to our downtown and really an iconic-type development that we’d like to see on the Western edge of the downtown area.”

Assistant City Manager Suzanne Frick called the proposal “a wonderful development project.”

On Tuesday, the Council unanimously (9-0) approved an amendment to the Local Coastal Program and Downtown Shoreline Planned Development District, which will essentially open the door for developers to move forward with the plan.

The project would take an estimated ten years and $1 billion to complete.

Initial plans for the project were shown as far back as November 2007, but developers determined that those plans did not sit well with the community and went back to the drawing bard to emerge with the current proposal.

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