An employee sits in the largest building at the Long Beach Rescue Mission’s new warehouse compound, the former home of West Coast Choppers. This room will be used for events as well as for the Mission’s nighttime winter shelter which it operates from December to March. Photos by Sarah Bennett.
Hundreds of Dole banana boxes sit filled with donated food in the Long Beach Rescue Mission’s new sprawling warehouse compound. A large West Coast Choppers logo—painted onto the red epoxied floor by the building’s previous tenants—sits as a stark contrast in the foreground.
It’s hard to believe that the one-time home base for cheating hubby Jesse James’ popular custom motorcycle business is now much-needed pantry space for one of the area’s leading faith-based homeless-assisting organizations.
If only these walls could talk.
Despite the seemingly opposite lifestyles of those who occupied the location before, Long Beach Rescue Mission’s CEO and President Jim Lewis says that buying the largest of the former West Coast Choppers buildings at 702 W. Anaheim St. made sense.
“This building is earthquake retrofitted and fire ready,” he said at a recent community open house to show off the new warehouse, which his organization purchased in April for $2.1 million. “They did so much great work on it that there wasn’t much we had to do. We paid pennies on the dollar for what it’s worth.”
Donated food sits in one of the former West Coast Chopper garages on the property.
Though the move isn’t technically an expansion—the West Coast Choppers building is the same square footage as the Mission’s old warehouse in North Long Beach it is giving up—the move is a definite upgrade and will allow the agency to provide more of its workforce and development services.
Because the new warehouse is only a block from its main housing complex on Pacific Ave., the Mission will also be using one of the new buildings on the West Coast Choppers property to grow its work therapy and job training operations.
The Mission will not be using any of the new space to expand its residential programs—which remain limited to the 120-bed Samaritan House for men and the 45-bed Lydia House for homeless women and children—though it is planning to use the largest building on the site for its nighttime winter shelter that operates each year during inclement weather season.
“We wanted to show the community that we are not putting another Rescue Mission here,” Lewis said of why he hosted the open house. “This will be our warehouse space […] and will allow us an expansion of services.”
The Rescue Mission is the first tenant of the property since James abruptly closed his business in 2010. The Mission began moving in last month.
Aside from the location being vandalized for some copper wiring and plumbing, Lewis says that the place was basically code-ready and that the organization is just waiting on the last few permits before moving in entirely.
But what about all the remnant imagery that keeps the place looking like the West Coast Choppers building? Will the Mission be painting over the other tattoo-art murals or taking down the large metal iron crosses on the front door and driveway gates?
“No. Why do that? The building has character and it’s iconic,” Lewis says. “That’s what I love about it; it’s really a unique space.”
