Plans for Long Beach’s tallest building get OK from city commission

It would unseat the under-construction Shoreline Gateway for the title

A 40-story tower would be the city’s tallest by current standards.

The Long Beach planning commission approved Thursday the West Gateway, a multi-building project that would include Long Beach’s tallest building, Longbeachize reports.

Developed by Trammell Crow Residential and designed by Studio One Eleven, the project would rise to a height of 40 stories via a prism-like glassy tower. That structure would be tall enough to unseat the 35-story Shoreline Gateway, under construction now on Ocean Boulevard and Shoreline Drive.

The West Gateway would hold 756 residential units—an increase over the 694 announced last year—in a handful of mid-rise buildings, a 21-story tower, and the 40-story tower. The project site is a large parking lot directly north of the World Trade Center in Long Beach, near Broadway and Magnolia.

The development would also include 3,000 square feet of retail space and more than 1,500 parking spaces, most of which would be held in a nine-story, freestanding parking garage. In its presentation to the commission, Studio One Eleven says that “this is not only the most economical short term solution, but it also allows future conversion of this [parking] structure to more productive uses, such as office or housing, as needs change.”

Documents presented to the planning commission indicate a phased build-out for the project, with the 40-story tower being the last component built.

The West Gateway is part of a crop of developments planned or under construction now in downtown Long Beach.