The port city of Long Beach, Calif., has long struggled to revive its downtown core, which steadily deteriorated as the Navy pared down and eventually closed its decades-old operations there by the late ’90s, with military contractors following.
The once-active naval community, where ships were regularly serviced and docked, became a place that, not too long ago, fewer people cared to visit, especially after dark.
“Downtown was really a no-go zone during nighttime,” said Richard Talbot, a market researcher who was hired in 2002 to help create a revitalization plan for the city’s retail district, centered on its main thoroughfare, Pine Avenue.