LONG BEACH, CA—Long Beach is finally emerging as a competitor in the Los Angeles office market. Several investors are buying up buildings in the market, noting that the downtown area has all of the characteristics of a live/work/play environment, like Downtown Los Angeles and Playa Vista. Among those characteristics are access to public transit, residential development and retail.

In an earlier story, GlobeSt.com reported that Ocean West Capital Partners and Singerman Group purchased a 200,000-square-foot office building in the submarket. We sat down with Russ Allegrette, a principal at Ocean West Capital Partners again to talk exclusively about the characteristics of Long Beach that are attracting investors, like them. "We like the connection that Long Beach has via public transportation," Allegrette tells GlobeSt.com. "They city is doing a lot of good things, and so we really see Long Beach emerging as a strong office market."

Ocean West plans to convert their recent purchase into a creative or "innovative" office property, which Allegrette says is the type of user gravitating toward the market. "Existing tenants in the market as well as tenants out of the market are all looking at more interesting and more functional workspace," he says. "The harbinger of growth for creative office always comes by virtue of urban residential and urban retail closely follows. That attracts millennials, who like an urban living environment. Then you bring in the public transportation. All of those dynamics are currently present in Downtown Long Beach, and as other markets firm up and get expensive, the workforce available in Downtown Long Beach as well as the newly created work-play environment will be attractive to tenants that may be priced out of other markets and who also look to capture some of the millennials that find Downtown Long Beach attractive."