The proposed CSULB Village. Renderings courtesy of City of Long Beach.
Plans to house over 1,000 Cal State Long Beach art students and faculty in the city’s downtown area through a proposed mixed-use complex, that will also include classrooms, labs and a museum, were announced today by Mayor Robert Garcia during a presentation on new developments taking place throughout the city.
The proposed CSULB Village, located between Promenade North and Long Beach Boulevard, from 4th and 5th streets in the former City Place site, is a 22-story, 352-700-square-foot project that will include housing for students with 800 beds and faculty and staff with 50 units; 16 meeting rooms, a 5,000-square-foot Innovation Incubator, 10,000-square-foot CSULB Art Gallery and Museum and 45,000-square-foot ground-floor retail, according to Shooshani Developers.
“We feel like the university and the city share so many things in addition to our mayor,” CSULB President Jane Close Conoley told attendees. “Commitment to innovation, to diversity, to entrepreneurship, to cultural, exciting events made available. We are so excited to work with you to envision a project that not only brings students, but also faculty and staff, downtown.”
Garcia said the move to bring junior, senior and graduate students from the university’s Masters in Fine Arts program along with faculty will help activate the downtown core.
Rendering of Broadway Block at 240 Long Beach Boulevard.
“The ‘CSULB Village’ is a gigantic win for the downtown core and will further activate the six-block area. This is the vision that we’ve long had for this site,” said Tony Shooshani in a statement. “We have been working with CSULB representatives for many years on possible projects in the area. The ‘CSULB Village’ will expand the University’s presence in the City and offer workshops, housing and additional amenities that will be an asset to the community.”
The CSULB Village, which was designed by Studio One Eleven, is an extended component to the Broadway Block, located at 240 Long Beach Boulevard in the former Acres of Books site, according to Garcia.
Broadway Block, which is currently an empty lot and was the site of the inaugural Music Tastes Good festival last September, is a proposed two-building, mixed-use project currently in the development process. The proposed project would create 375 residential units with creative office and retail space and a small food hall.
The Broadway Block project would be across from The Promenade and the Metro Blue Line, Garcia noted.
Developers said it will be developed in the six-block mixed-use district between Long Beach Boulevard and Pine Avenue from 3rd to 6th Street, now referred to as “The Streets”.
“Long Beach is quickly becoming a model city for strategic development that supports a more livable, innovative and sustainable future,” said Mayor Robert Garcia in a statement. “Student and faculty housing will activate our Downtown Core with new economic opportunities and academic partnerships.”
The announcement of the CSULB Village and Broadway Block were only two of 59 projects Garcia updated guests about Tuesday morning at the Beverly O’Neill Theater. Of those projects, seven are collaborations with nonprofits and 47 are privately funded, city officials said.
Construction on the CSULB Village is set to begin in the fall.