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The Salvation Army Site Assembly Proposed Center

Long Beach, CA 5.07 Acres 2 Years

Site Planning Diagram
Site Planning Diagram
Plaza Level
Plaza Level

OVERVIEW

The Salvation Army Citadel Corps of Long Beach has a campus located to the east of this rendering. Through the past several years, the Army has purchased most of the block, however, there were two key parcels that the Army did not own, but were crucial for this development. Patrick O'Healy has worn a multitude of hats in regards to this project. He was the Incoming Chairman for The Citadel Corps Advisory Board, and Chaired the Real Estate Committee. The Army was originally working with another Broker to obtain these parcels without success. At the time, Patrick was a Board Member and was sensitive about injecting himself into the role of Broker for the Army. They approached him and they began to work to secure these two parcels.

Fortunately, they were able to come to terms with both property owners, and completed the sales in the first quarter of 2003. As a part of convincing one of the property owners to be a seller, he was required to find the seller a suitable exchange property to duplicate his investment strategy for the small office building he owned. That was accomplished despite the difficult market for investment properties.

The block in question was a former oil field. There were eleven wells on the property, which had to be capped to facilitate development, as well as the resultant environmental issues. As a part of our process, we evaluated each of the wells and pulled the files with The State Department of Oil and Gas, (DOG). These costs are an important factor that were considered along with the scope of the development, process for developing, the cost of the project, and how to develop a capital campaign to cover the costs.

The Long Beach Intergenerational Center is an innovative type of development that had not been done before. The center will include the following:

  • Senior-low income housing
  • Senior drop in center
  • Senior day care
  • Children's pre-school
  • Gym
  • Swimming pool
  • Meeting rooms
  • Craft rooms
  • Dance rooms
  • Workout facilities
  • Locker rooms
  • And much more

The services will largely be free to the community, and this project fills a huge void in this part of the City.

Patrick O'Healy chaired the committee that selected the architect. The architects have commenced development of the preliminary plans for this project. A significant amount of fundraising has already occurred, and the Army is well on the way toward coverage of the likely budget.

The magnitude of the land acquisition for this project that O'Healy handled is small in square footage terms, but is very significant as they were the key parcels without which the development could not move forward. The spectrum of issues that needed to be dealt with were huge, and had the potential to impact the viability of the project significantly.