Walk Manhattan Beach Boulevard on a Tuesday morning and the block around Metlox Plaza looks like a city trying to catch its breath. A gelato shop has taken up residence in Metlox Plaza where a bare storefront sat months ago. A block away, an Italian concept called Sogna Toscana just got the green light from the Planning Commission to build out the space Lemonade left behind, patio and all. On Manhattan Avenue, a French bistro with existing locations in Venice and West Hollywood has already opened in the space Nando Trattoria vacated. Kelly Stroman, who runs the Downtown Manhattan Beach Business and Professionals Association, told MB News in July that the turnover downtown right now is unprecedented, and that everyone in the business community is talking about it.
She is not exaggerating for effect. Something is different about who is signing these leases, and it lines up with something else happening two blocks over, where the city itself is deciding what to do with two parcels of land it controls outright. Those two threads, the private storefronts and the public lots, are moving in opposite directions this year, and neither one gets explained by looking at it alone.
What's Actually Changing Hands
The pattern in the July MB News rundown is worth reading closely, because it is not just a list of openings and closings. It is a shift in what kind of business can afford Manhattan Beach Boulevard rent.
Beyond Yoga, the national athleisure brand, is moving into the space Gum Tree vacated after losing its lease. Gum Tree, a local home goods and gift boutique that has been part of downtown for years, is relocating to a smaller storefront nearby rather than closing outright. Blank Street Coffee, a coffee chain expanding rapidly across multiple cities, has signed for the former Peet's Coffee space on Manhattan Beach Boulevard. Alfred Coffee, which already operates several Los Angeles locations, is taking over the Ocean View Cafe space after that longtime spot closed. Velvet by Graham & Spencer, a multi-location clothing brand, is moving into the former Gelato & Angels storefront.
Set against that, the businesses that closed this year were largely single-location operations. Drift Beach Club shut down in June. Walstory closed in July. Pressed Juicery closed with no announced replacement tenant yet. Ocean View Cafe is gone. Parakeet Cafe, which was supposed to take the old Cafe Altamura space, is delayed with no opening date announced.
A few new arrivals cut the other way. Ounce of Salt, a jewelry line by local designer Jen Baick, opened on Manhattan Avenue in the former Rolling Hills Flower Mart space this summer. Framebridge is expected in the old Kate Lester Home spot this fall. But the larger gravitational pull, a gelato shop into a plaza storefront, national athleisure into a departing local boutique's space, a growing coffee chain into a shuttered Peet's, points toward brands with more locations and more capital replacing operators who ran one shop and answered their own phone.
The Land the City Bought for Itself
While that is happening on the storefront side, the city of Manhattan Beach has been running its own experiment two parcels away, and the results cut against what the retail turnover suggests.
In April 2025, the city spent over $13 million to acquire the former US Bank building at 400 Manhattan Beach Boulevard, financing the purchase through tax-exempt Certificates of Participation. That bond structure creates its own pressure. Once a city borrows against a piece of land, it has a debt service schedule to meet whether or not the final use is settled, which is part of why officials have described the 400 MBB timeline as unusually aggressive.
The city ran a public input process called Project Pulse to figure out what residents want there, starting in fall 2025 and including a phone survey, farmers market booths, and focus groups with downtown business owners. Results from that outreach, presented to the council in January and reported by Easy Reader, were not close. For 400 MBB, open space and park use collected 172 votes, ahead of mixed-use development at 140 and cultural arts or community space at 76.
That is a striking outcome for a parcel the city just spent public money to acquire on Manhattan Beach's main commercial street. Residents, given the choice, were not asking for more retail there. They were asking for less.
At that same January council session, Mayor Pro Tem Joe Franklin floated an idea that captures the tension directly: build a small rooftop park above a surface parking lot at 400 MBB, so someone could grab a sandwich and eat it with an ocean view above the boulevard traffic. Council Member Amy Howorth pushed back, calling the concept a possible attractive nuisance for the residents who live nearby.
Lot 3 Tells the Opposite Story
A block away, the numbers flip. Lot 3, the site of a parking structure demolished in 2024 after a seismic evaluation flagged it as unsafe, is the other half of Project Pulse. Here, residents voted for a parking structure first, 160 votes, ahead of open space at 131 and mixed-use at 104.
The two sites, evaluated by the same residents in the same survey, produced opposite verdicts. Downtown wants less commercial density and more breathing room at the old bank site. It wants its parking back at the old garage site. Put another way, residents are not asking for one blanket outcome. They are making a specific trade at each address, based on what each address used to be.
| Site | First choice | Second choice | Financing context |
|---|---|---|---|
| 400 MBB (former US Bank) | Open space/park, 172 votes | Mixed-use development, 140 votes | Acquired for over $13 million in April 2025 via Certificates of Participation |
| Lot 3 (former parking structure) | Parking structure, 160 votes | Open space/park, 131 votes | Replacement cost estimated between $10.2 million and $21 million |
Replacing the 145 spaces Lot 3 used to hold is not cheap. MB News reported in July that construction runs roughly $70,000 per space above ground and $145,000 per space underground, with debt service on a new structure potentially landing between $600,000 and $1.4 million a year. That is the price of giving residents the parking outcome they actually voted for.
The Height Fight Nobody Downtown Is Watching Closely
Both sites are also caught in a quieter argument that will shape what gets built regardless of use. On August 12, 2026, the Manhattan Beach Planning Commission held a study session on whether to raise the maximum building height at both parcels from 26 feet to 30 feet, provided on-site parking is included in whatever gets built.
Commissioners split their reasoning by site. Several argued Lot 3, given its history as a multi-level parking structure, was the more logical candidate for the extra four feet, since it would let the city stack more parking without changing the site's basic character. For 400 MBB, commissioners were more cautious, noting the parcel abuts residential streets and might not carry the same justification for added height.
That four-foot difference will decide how much a future building on either site can hold, and by extension how much parking, open space, or retail can physically fit. The commission did not take formal action at the study session. A public hearing and a separate council hearing are still ahead, with the exact timing still being worked out as of late August.
Reading the Two Trends Side by Side
None of this happens in isolation from the storefront turnover a block away. Manhattan Beach Boulevard's private leases are trending toward operators with more locations and more capital. Its two public parcels, chosen by the same households who shop those storefronts, are trending toward less commercial density, not more. Downtown residents are, in effect, asking their city government to build the kind of breathing room that the market side of the boulevard is currently selling off lease by lease.
That gap does not resolve itself this year. The council review of final design concepts for both sites was calendared for September, and the height amendment still needs a public hearing before the Coastal Commission ever sees it. What is settled already is the direction each side is pulling. The boulevard's tenant mix is consolidating toward brands like Beyond Yoga and Blank Street Coffee. The two lots the city controls outright are being pushed, vote by vote, toward parking and park space instead of more of the same.
Anyone who parks on Morningside Drive, walks past Metlox Plaza for coffee, or has watched a favorite storefront turn over twice in one year is living inside both of these stories at once, whether the council session lands in September or later this year.
If you are weighing what any of this means for a property you own or are considering near downtown Manhattan Beach, The Pennel Group is available for a confidential conversation about how these changes intersect with value on the ground.
