Long Beach “City Hall East” Feasibility Study - City of Long Beach, CA

The City acquired a 140,000 sf private sector office building, which had been temporarily used for housing City Police services during a seismic retrofit project. As Police vacated this temporary quarters, they asked the question: What is the feasibility of relocating general government City functions from leased space into this “City Hall East” (CHE) building? Griffin was selected in a formal RFP process to perform several tasks. Task 1 was a “Strategic Data” analysis phase, including (1) evaluation of lease and commercial market conditions, (2) space needs assessed and programmed for feasible City functions, and (3) assessment of the existing building physical conditions, systems, and upgradability. Task 2 included evaluation of City options for the CHE, and quantification of the costs and benefits. This included a block and stacking plan for CHE, cost analysis, and evaluation of policy options. Task 3 included the recommendation plan for the City, including refined project budgets and proposed City actions. The outcome included an extensive evaluation of City facility needs, and several options including net recapture of $1 million annually in cost savings from discontinued leases, returning significant one-time cost benefits from sale of the building (mainly for residential conversion), and others. The City has since issued a set of requests for proposals from developers for developing the CHE and related properties, based on the foundation analysis submitted in the course of this project.