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2nd & PCH Unveiled in Long Beach
One of the most familiar sights in the California landscape is the mall, but Long Beach, Calif., despite being the seventh largest city in the state, has been traditionally “under-malled.”
The downtown areas of Long Beach, as well as the city’s well-off neighborhoods of Belmont Shore and Naples, have mostly been served by standalone boutique retail in the past. But in 2019, when development of traditional malls and lifestyle centers has been at a low ebb throughout the state, a mall was unveiled at the southeastern tip of Long Beach on Oct. 14.
CenterCal LLC, based in El Segundo, Calif., developed 2nd & PCH, an open-air retail center located on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and 2nd Street in Long Beach. In an Oct. 31 interview with California Apparel News, Jean Paul Wardy, CenterCal’s president, said that the absence of traditional malls in Long Beach attracted the company to the city.
“There was a lot of data that showed the customer was there. But there were no stores serving these customers,” he said. “There was a long list of retailers that had never landed in Long Beach for one reason or another.”
Built on the former grounds of the Seaport Marina Hotel, the 2nd & PCH retail center is anchored by a Whole Foods supermarket, and fashion will be an important part of the new mall. Fashion tenants for the 215,000-square-foot retail center include Urban Outfitters, Lululemon Athletica, Johnny Was, Free People and a location for Linne’s, a Seal Beach, Calif., boutique. 2nd & PCH is located by a boating marina and also features community areas for hanging out.
The Long Beach retail center was one of the few malls developed in California in 2019. In March, the One Paseo retail center in Del Mar, Calif., opened. The Paseo Nuevo retail center in Santa Barbara, Calif., completed the first phase of a $20 million remodel in November. It is anchored by a Nordstrom and also includes a Gap and a Pacific Sunwear.
