The rooms were cramped and parking was tight, but architect Richard Kassab was under orders from his developer client to make no structural changes to a classic Southern California roadside motor lodge.
Kassab, project manager and architect with Omgivning, and his client, Kody Suryan at Paloma Communities, stayed true to the building's original vibes in their renovation of the City Center hotel in Long Beach. At the same time, their makeover allows current-day travelers to enjoy its time-capsule-like appeal.
Paloma Communities acquired the structure then known as the City Center Motel in 2022 for nearly $5.4 million and proceeded to line up financing and a design team to renovate the aging structure. The Long Beach-based developer had previously worked with Omgivning and hired the firm as lead architect. The renovated City Center hotel recently reopened along with a new attached restaurant called Olive & Rose.
City Center Motel originally opened in 1962 and, like many small lodgings of that era, the rooms were tiny and amenities were few and far between. Its condition didn’t dissuade Omgivning.
“It was a really run-down motel and Paloma had the vision to turn it into something else,” Kassab told CoStar News. “For us, the size and scale doesn’t matter. We were attracted to its shape, its history and its neighborhood. It was a no-brainer to take it on.”
Suryan said he's been working on the City Center project for years and originally thought it would be a conversion to apartments. He changed his mind after realizing that Long Beach was more in need of a new hotel.
"We didn't have anything for someone who wanted a hotel that was more intimate, a boutique hotel that's hip," Suryan told CoStar News.
While the hotel opened the same week that some of the most damaging wildfires on record devastated areas around Los Angeles, he doesn't know whether any of the guests were escaping the burning areas. The blazes haven't had any effect on the area around the hotel.
Omgivning — the name means environment or ambience in Swedish — is a Los Angeles-based firm known for its historic preservation work, including Kor Group’s conversion of the Downtown L.A. Proper Hotel.
What City Center in Long Beach lacked in modern trappings, it more than made up for with mid-century modern styling. And Los Angeles is serious about its appreciation for mid-century modern architecture, of which there is an abundance throughout Southern California, according to the Los Angeles Conservancy, a nonprofit group that promotes historic preservation.
Neighbors caused an uproar when fast-food chain Raising Cane’s recently proposed plans to convert Norms diner in West Hollywood, an icon for its design in the Googie style that belongs to the mid-century modern era. The community protests led Raising Cane’s to scrap its plans for Norms, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The roadside motor lodge City Center Motel was another typology of the mid-century modern era. That style of hotel once blanketed Southern California, but many have been demolished, according to the conservancy.
City Center joins the 1967 Beverly Laurel Motor Hotel in the Fairfax District as examples of the style in Los Angeles that have been modernized.
“The deteriorated courtyard and pool decking were replaced, and the pool’s original coping [the masonry on top of a pool’s walls] was resourced and replaced with tiles that recaptured the pool’s original feel,” the conservancy said about Beverly Laurel Motor Hotel on its website.
“The hotel’s original signature color, blue, is given homage through aquamarine-colored lighting and coloring throughout the property,” according to the conservancy.
Omgivning took the approach to keep as much of that mid-century modern personality as possible at City Center, Kassab said. That meant retaining the building’s straight lines, lack of decorative elements and low ceilings. It also meant Omgivning couldn’t divide or combine the hotel’s original 50-room layout.
At the same time, Omgivning gave City Center modern amenities essential to attracting guests in the current day.
The firm converted the main check-in desk and lobby and an attached apartment for the front-desk clerk into a restaurant space. Because the lobby and clerk’s apartment were such tiny rooms, the restaurant’s interior contains only the kitchen and a small bar area.
“The whole restaurant experience happens outside,” Kassab said.
A fence separates the restaurant, Olive & Rose, from the street. Olive & Rose is led by chef Philip Pretty and his sister Lauren Pretty, a sibling duo who won a Michelin star rating for their Long Beach restaurant Heritage.
Suryan said it would have been cheaper for Paloma if it had recruited a national chain for its restaurant space, but he wanted a locally owned outfit to occupy the space.
"I'm a Long Beach guy and it was important to have a restaurant from Long Beach people," he said.
Parking for hotel guests was moved to a small lot behind the hotel and to street spaces. That allowed Kassab to transform the interior parking lot into a courtyard that’s the hotel’s main feature.
“It’s a landscaped courtyard that’s really the heart of the project,” Kassab said. “It’s a lounging space, it’s vibrant and it’s really the main gathering place for guests.”
For the record
JR Van Dijs Construction Management was general contractor. City Center hotel is managed by Sonder. The original architect was Bob Langslet of Long Beach.