Downtown Long Beach

Downtown is where Long Beach began and still its most urban neighborhood. The city's neighborhood map runs it from Ocean Boulevard north to about 10th Street, between the Los Angeles River and the 710 on the west and Alamitos Avenue on the east. Inside that are the Pine Avenue core, the East Village Arts District, the West End, the Civic Center and the Willmore City historic blocks.

Most people who live downtown rent. In ZIP 90802, about 79% of households are renters, and a run of new apartment towers has gone up over the last decade. The tallest is the 35-story Shoreline Gateway on Ocean Boulevard, finished in 2021 and now the tallest building in Long Beach. If you want an apartment in Long Beach, this is where the most choice is.

Buyers mostly shop condos and lofts. In September 2026, 41 of the 43 homes listed downtown were condos, in buildings from the 1920s to the 2000s, asking about $360,000 to $1.08 million. A condo here doesn't come with a yard. You buy the walk, and sometimes a view.

Rainbow Harbor, the Aquarium of the Pacific, Shoreline Village and The Pike are a short walk from most buildings, and the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach turns the streets into a racetrack every April. In 2028 the Long Beach Arena and the Convention Center will host Olympic handball, shooting, water polo, artistic swimming and sport climbing.

The Metro A Line starts downtown and runs without a transfer to Downtown Los Angeles, Pasadena and Pomona, 57.7 miles in all, the longest modern light rail line in the world. Plenty of residents here keep one car or none.

Long Beach began here. In 1880 Jotham Bixby sold 4,000 acres of Rancho Los Cerritos to an Englishman, William E. Willmore, who laid out a colony called Willmore City; the city dates that original town plan to 1881. The venture failed, the land went to the Long Beach Land and Water Company in 1884, and the town took the name Long Beach. It first incorporated in 1888, briefly disincorporated in 1896, and reincorporated on December 13, 1897. The Willmore name lives on in the Drake Park/Willmore City Historic District on the northwest side, which the city says has the highest concentration of early 1900s housing in Long Beach.

Then came the Pike. A grand bathhouse opened on the sand on July 4, 1902, the same morning the first Pacific Electric Red Car arrived from Los Angeles, and an amusement zone grew around it. Its Cyclone Racer, a wooden dual-track roller coaster built on pilings over the water, ran from 1930 to 1968 and carried more than 30 million riders. The city declined to renew the Pike's leases in 1979, and the rides came down.

Modern Downtown came out of decades of waterfront redevelopment. The Grand Prix started in 1975, ran as a Formula One race from 1976 to 1983, and has been an Indy car race since 1984; it's the city's largest event, with weekend crowds around 200,000. The Aquarium opened on Rainbow Harbor in 1998, and a run of residential towers since then has turned an office core into a place people live.

Downtown is almost all condos, so the building sets the price: which floor, what view, the HOA dues and reserves, amenities, parking. In September 2026, one-bedrooms asked from about $360,000 and two-bedrooms mostly $550,000 to $950,000, with a middle asking price around $630,000 across all condos, below the citywide middle of about $899,000 for all home types.

That makes it a common first purchase for people who want to own near the water or ride the train to Los Angeles. Newer towers and view units sit at the top of the range, older buildings and studios at the bottom. For pricing, what sold recently in the same building matters most.

From most buildings you can walk to groceries, dinner and the water, and the flat grid and the beach path make biking easy. The A Line runs from downtown to Downtown Los Angeles in one ride, and on to Pasadena and Pomona.

For driving, downtown sits at the end of the 710, with Ocean Boulevard and Shoreline Drive along the water and the 405 a short hop north. Expect paid garages, metered streets, and closures during the Grand Prix, concerts and conventions. LAX is usually 30 to 45 minutes by car.