babyhuey Item 6 on the consent calendar at Tuesday evening’s meeting of the Long Beach City Council authorizes a refund of $50,592 to Pacific Castle Long Beach LLP, which is apparently withdrawing its plan for a massive redevelopment of the MarketPlace Shopping Center—a project we dubbed Baby Huey last April, when we discovered it buried in the Environmental Impact Report for the Second+PCH redevelopment right across the street.

At the time, most of the focus was on the wide array of zoning violations, unsubstantiated claims and deleterious consequences in the Second+PCH project, a residential/hotel/retail makeover of the Seaport Marina Hotel. Nobody even mentioned plans for across the street.

And when those plans were found deep in the EIR—Chapter III, pages 1, 2 and 3—and they turned out to be packed with even more retail, residential and hotel rooms than Second+PCH? They weren’t even analyzed. Instead, they were dismissed as “speculative.”

Speculative?

A conceptual site plan was submitted and more than $50 grand in fees were paid, yet the EIR never mentioned that money and called the whole thing speculative? If so, Baby Huey was/is/whatever certainly speculation of the highest order.

Here’s how the EIR describes it:

“Specifically, the Market Place conceptual site plan contemplates the redevelopment of the 18.42-acre Market Place site with up to 245,000 square feet of retail development, 90,000 square feet of office space, a 25,000-square foot cultural center/building/conference facility, 530 residential units, a 120-room boutique hotel and spa, and a 40-room coastal affordable/hostel residential use,” says the document.

Having a hard time imagining how all that could be packed on the edge of the Los Cerritos Wetlands? Think Baby Huey—big, fat and tall.

“The conceptual plan, as submitted, proposes structures generally ranging from two to six stories in height, with the exception of one mixed-use hotel tower reaching a maximum of 15 stories,” says the EIR.

Comparatively, Second+PCH proposes only 220,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, a 100-unit boutique hotel, 95 hotel-condominium units and 230 residential units in a mix of lofts, flats and townhomes.

One of the most-prominent complaints about the Second+PCH project is the proposed height of its hotel tower, which is only 12 stories—that is, three stories shorter than Baby Huey—albeit, nine or 10 stories higher than the current zoning limit of 35 feet. The other big objection was to all the extra traffic it would generate.

Is the withdrawal of the Baby Huey plan based on the anticipated recirculation of the Second+PCH EIR—a strategy to improve its chance of approval? Will it re-emerge again later?

Well, for now, that’s just speculative.