The Street Seen: The Shores
2700 & 2800 Neilson Way
The twin 17-story “The Shores” towers were built in 1964 - 1968 as part of a City of Santa Monica urban renewal project.
The twin 17-story “The Shores” towers have their origins with the Santa Monica Redevelopment Agency (SMRA) - a city public body created in 1957 and tasked with urban renewal. SMRA selected a 45-acre Ocean Park beach strip (West of Neilson from Ocean Park Blvd south to the city border) as its first re-development project.
In 1961, with a $2.5 MM loan backed by the Federal Housing and Home Finance Agency, SMRA began purchasing and clearing property designated as “blighted.” A joint venture between the Kern County Land Company and Del E. Webb Construction Company was selected to build 8 high-rise apartment buildings. In 1965, the Kern-Webb partnership bought the lot on which “The Shores” would be built. The two identical 17-story buildings each with 261,681 sq-ft and 266 units were designed by Welton Becket & Associates and built by Del Webb in 1964 - 1968.
The two towers, identical in shape and colors, were typical examples of high-modernist aesthetics. The towers also included a post office, delicatessen snack bar, liquor store, beauty parlor, and a three-level underground parking garage, to provide a total environment that solved the residents’ daily requirements. In other words, the towers provided the benefits of living by the ocean without having to experience life in a “substandard” neighborhood.
In 1967, Tenneco purchased Kern County Land Company. The demand for leasing at “The Shores” was lower than anticipated, and in January 1971, Kern-Webb sold the property to Santa Monica Shores Limited Partnership (David S. Rosen and Lawrence Kates) for $14 MM.
The investment value of apartment buildings declined when stringent Rent Control was adopted by Santa Monica voters in 1979. However effective January 1999, landlords in Santa Monica were permitted under Costa-Hawkins to raise rents to market levels when units are vacated (vacancy decontrol). In May 1999, Brentwood-based Douglas Emmett, who owns and operates multiple class-A office buildings and apartment communities in Southern California and Honolulu, bought “The Shores” for $95 MM. As part of the deal, well over 100 of the 532 units were vacant when the property sold.
The two-tower site consists of a single 815 ft x 265 ft (215,975 sq-ft) Los Angeles County Assessor parcel (APN 4288-020-036). The site is now zoned Ocean Park High Density Residential (OP4) which has a maximum of 3 stories.