Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the name of the Select Committee on Downtown Recovery, which was originally referred to as the Select Committee on Economic Recovery.
More homes, fewer offices, a stronger police presence and a fat pair of scissors to cut all that bureaucratic tape. These are what Long Beach needs to revive its downtown, Assemblymember Matt Haney, D-San Francisco, concluded during a tour of the city’s core Tuesday.
Joined by a retinue of aides, developers, local officials and nonprofit types at Broadway and Pine, Haney said California’s downtowns have “become ghost towns” in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent rise in remote work that hollowed out skyscrapers and storefronts.
“Let’s make it a lot easier to convert some of these empty buildings that used to be office space into housing,” Haney said. “Well, that’s hard right now, because in many cases, there’s red tape in bureaucracy that the state is putting away that we need to get out of the way so that local leaders can get this done.”
The visit marks the fourth of eight note-taking stops that Haney, who chairs the Select Committee on Downtown Recovery, plans to make before the state Legislature reconvenes in January; he previously toured Sacramento, San Jose and his home city.
Following that, the committee plans to hold public hearings with the intent of reinvigorating California’s declining downtowns, from incentives like tax credits for in-person work to streamlined permitting for “adaptive reuse” or conversion of office space into housing.
This includes state-owned property, Haney explained, which doesn’t offer property taxes to city coffers — a “double whammy” to any city budget.
“My view on it is, if the state is not going to bring back the workers because they’ve now moved to remote work, then we should turn the building over to somebody who will use it,” Haney said. “It should be, ‘use or lose it.’”
The problems, however, vary by city.
As opposed to Sacramento, where the downtown is 70% owned by the state, Long Beach’s urban core is largely private. And in comparison to San Jose, whose state university is walking distance from city hall, Cal State Long Beach to the Civic Center is a five-mile drive.
Despite Long Beach being among the cheapest downtown markets in Los Angeles County — it averages $2.30 per office square foot and $3.08 for retail space — its residents make nearly a quarter less than the county average and a fourth of its offices are empty, according to a 2024 economic profile by the Downtown Long Beach Alliance. That latter rate has doubled since 2019, with averages at their worst among class A buildings, or high-rise towers.
The area is also struggling to draw back foot traffic, which remains below pre-pandemic levels.
DTLB Alliance President Austin Metoyer said during the tour that upwards of 100 businesses have left downtown since 2020. Many were traditional tenants — less than half of downtown stores recently surveyed were there in 2013 — like jewelers and tailors, restaurants and dentists who once hung their shingles downtown but now do business in distant office towers, strip malls and medical complexes.
And what replaced them? Bars and trendy restaurants, part of what Mayor Rex Richardson summed as the “24/7 economy” that can accompany flashy projects like the city’s inbound amphitheater, Hard Rock Hotel and a reinvigorated Queen Mary. “Tourism has great potential in Long Beach,” Richardson said.
But as many storefronts remain shuttered, residents, employees and business owners point to concerns like homelessness and property crimes that were turbocharged during the pandemic.
“I think that’s the one thing that’s deterring our businesses downtown right now,” said Sheva Hosseinzadeh, a principal broker with Coldwell Banker Commercial BLAIR. “They just want better safety measures, and, you know, want the city to have some sort of initiative for the unhoused.”
Just across the street from where Tuesday’s tour began, a 7-Eleven blared Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F Major to keep its front doors clear of loiterers.
Looking around the Promenade, Haney said Long Beach needs a “more visible police presence” but also more funding for homelessness programs.
“We need to have policing that is out and visible, confronting and addressing crimes,” said Haney. “I think if you look around in Long Beach you’re seeing some progress there, but the state needs to support that.”
Richardson held up Lincoln Park as a positive example. Before, up to 40 tents could be seen clustered there and at the adjacent library, he said, but, “If you were to go over there today, maybe you would see one. That came out of consistent outreach and funding from the state.” Many of the chronic tent-dwellers have been moved to the downtown Vagabond Inn, which the city leased as shelter with the goal of moving them along into permanent housing.
It’s progress, but, so far, it’s not enough to return downtown to its pre-pandemic luster.
“Families aren’t coming down because they don’t feel safe,” said Clare Le Bras, who manages the Ordinarie tavern a few blocks from the tour stop.