Long Beach is preparing to demolish a once-quaint shopping village next to the Queen Mary that has been unused and decaying for the last several years.
With final approval from the Long Beach City Council given Tuesday, Signal Hill–based Environmental Construction Group, Inc. is expected to start tearing down the half-century-old structures by April 1, according to city documents.
The Old English Village — previously called the Queen’s Marketplace and Mary’s Gate Village — was built in 1972 as an accompanying attraction to the iconic ocean liner, which the city purchased and permanently docked along its shoreline five years earlier.
The idea was to recreate a village “plucked from the heart of England and set down on a one-acre plot” in the Queen Mary’s parking lot, according to an Independent, Press-Telegram article from the time.
According to the article, Mary’s Gate was designed by Vernon G. Leckman, who also planned nearby Ports O’ Call in San Pedro. In Long Beach, he set out to mimic Tudor, Elizabethan and Edwardian architecture styles down to rough-hewn timber and mock dowel fastenings that hid more modern metalwork.
For decades, the handful of buildings held shops and stopovers for tourists, but they’ve sat vacant and unused for more than five years.
The village has been slated for demolition since 2019 when the ship’s leaseholder, a hotel investment company called Urban Commons, decided to bulldoze it for a modern entertainment plaza dubbed Queen Mary Island.
But those plans unraveled in dramatic fashion, with the company declaring bankruptcy and its two principals, Taylor Woods and Howard Wu, now facing charges they defrauded investors out of $70 million.
Without adequate maintenance from Urban Commons, the structures decayed, according to city documents.
They now have “sizable holes in the roofing system, holes in the exterior and interior walls, and broken doors and windows,” according to a report from the Economic Development and Public Works departments.
Years of unabated mold, vermin infestation, break-ins, “encampment attempts” and vandalism have left the village in a dangerous state, the report says.
The City Council voted 8-0 on Tuesday night to approve the demolition plan. The site will be leveled and turned into more parking or event space.
The work is expected to cost no more than $1,406,677. The bill will be footed by the city, which took over day-to-day operations at the Queen Mary after no other private company sought to buy the ship’s lease out of Urban Common’s bankruptcy auction.
Since Urban Common’s collapse, Long Beach has invested tens of millions of dollars in repairs and maintenance on the Queen. As a result, the city says, it is now drawing back crowds and operating at a profit.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to show the City Council approved the demolition Tuesday, March 5.