Long Beach Civic Center Earns ENR Best of the Best Recognition

Long Beach, CA – Clark Construction Group is proud to announce that the Long Beach Civic Center (LBCC) has been named as Engineering News-Record’s Best of the Best Project for 2020 in the Government/Public Building category. Representing the “pinnacle of design and construction achievement”, LBCC stood out among the 200 projects submitted for consideration for ENR’s national competition. The project was recognized for its excellence in teamwork, safety, innovation, and quality.

The ENR recognition adds to a growing list of industry awards the project has garnered in the year since its completion, including the AGC Build America Award and the DBIA WPR Project of the Year Award.  Encompassing four buildings and spread across several city blocks, this multi-faceted development in the heart of downtown Long Beach features 600,000 square feet of sustainable structures that include a new city hall, civic chambers, headquarters for the Port of Long Beach, and the Billie Jean King Main  Library. The project also created greater connectivity between the Civic Center district and the surrounding city through the reintroduction of the city grid with a regional bike network, buses, and the Metro Blue Line.

The new LBCC is the centerpiece of the City’s efforts to revitalize its downtown area, without added burden to taxpayers. The development was delivered under an innovative public-private partnership (P3), utilizing a design-build-finance-operate-maintain (DBFOM) contract, which enabled the construction and long-term maintenance of the Civic Center in exchange for land that will be privately developed. The project is the nation’s and North America’s first municipal DBFOM. The project is also the first North American hybrid DBFOM to combine public infrastructure and private development within a single project. Clark affiliate company Edgemoor Infrastructure & Real Estate helped lead development efforts on the project.

The new Civic Center optimizes operations and maintenance, maximizes street parking, and expands bike infrastructure to create a hierarchy and quality of place – one that befits the city’s dynamic center for culture, recreation, education, and government. Clark Construction delivered the project ahead of schedule, logging more than 1.8 million work hours with zero lost time incidents.

Ensuring that area residents played a significant role in the delivery of the Civic Center was a top priority for City officials and the LBCC team. Over the three-year construction period, Clark worked to guarantee that Long Beach residents played a meaningful role in the build effort. More than 1,200 craft workers from the City and its immediate surrounding communities helped bring the project to life. Ultimately, Clark exceeded the project’s local workforce participation goal of 30%, achieving 78% participation from residents in Long Beach and the greater Los Angeles County combined.

Phase two of the LBCC program is currently underway, comprising of the construction of a parking garage exit ramp and the revitalization and expansion of Lincoln Park, the City’s oldest park. The new central green space will feature two dog parks, a children’s play area, a fitness equipment area, and skate park. Clark is scheduled to complete work on the park project this fall.