Bring a Flagship Trader Joe’s to Downtown Long Beach
The issue
Downtown Long Beach is becoming a true residential neighborhood. Now it needs a neighborhood grocery store.
Downtown Long Beach is growing.
Thousands of people live in apartments, condominiums, lofts, and new residential developments throughout Downtown. We walk our neighborhood. We support our local restaurants and businesses. We use Metro. We want Downtown to be a place where people can not only visit—but actually live their everyday lives.
Yet one basic neighborhood necessity remains frustratingly difficult for many Downtown residents:
Convenient, walkable access to a full-service grocery store with fresh food.
That is why we are asking Trader Joe’s, the City of Long Beach, Downtown property owners, developers, and community leaders to work together to bring a flagship Trader Joe’s to Downtown Long Beach.
Why Trader Joe’s? Why Downtown Long Beach?
Trader Joe’s is more than somewhere to buy groceries. Its neighborhood-scale stores can become part of the daily rhythm of a community.
Downtown Long Beach offers something extraordinary in return: a dense and growing residential population, historic commercial corridors, public transportation, visitors, hotels, local businesses, and multiple potential locations with access to parking.
We believe Downtown represents an opportunity for Trader Joe’s to create something special:
A FLAGSHIP URBAN TRADER JOE’S FOR LONG BEACH.
A store designed for a walkable Downtown neighborhood while still providing parking for customers who need it.
A store where residents can walk downstairs or a few blocks for produce, meat, dairy, prepared meals, flowers, pantry staples, and everyday groceries.
A store that brings consistent foot traffic back to Downtown storefronts.
And a store that celebrates the character, diversity, history, and unmistakable personality of Long Beach.
We Have More Than One Potential Location
This campaign is intentionally not dependent upon a single property.
We have identified multiple potential Downtown locations that deserve serious consideration, particularly along and around Historic Pine Avenue, including the 5th and 6th Street area.
Importantly, the locations being considered have existing or adjacent parking opportunities, while also benefiting from Downtown’s walkability and transit connections.
The conceptual images accompanying this petition demonstrate several possibilities. They are community-created visions and do not represent locations announced, selected, approved, or endorsed by Trader Joe’s.
We want Trader Joe’s and local stakeholders to determine which available property makes the most operational and economic sense.
The location can be flexible. The community need is not.
This Is About Fresh-Food Access
Downtown has restaurants, bars, entertainment, coffee shops, and convenience businesses.
Those things contribute enormously to Downtown life.
But living in a neighborhood also means being able to buy the ingredients for dinner.
It means picking up vegetables on the way home.
Milk. Eggs. Fruit. Bread. Meat. Household necessities.
It means seniors, people without cars, working families, people with disabilities, and residents who deliberately chose a walkable lifestyle having reasonable access to everyday groceries.
A thriving Downtown cannot be built entirely around entertainment and visitors.
It must work for the people who live here.
Historic Pine Avenue Could Become a Neighborhood Main Street Again
A grocery anchor could also help address another challenge facing Downtown: underutilized storefronts and the need for consistent pedestrian activity.
Restaurants generate activity at particular times.
Entertainment brings people Downtown for events.
A neighborhood grocery store generates trips morning, afternoon, evening, seven days a week.
Those customers also walk past coffee shops, restaurants, salons, retailers, and other Downtown businesses.
Putting an essential everyday use into the Downtown core isn’t just about groceries.
It is economic development.
And Long Beach Is About to Welcome the World
Long Beach will play an important role in the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
That creates an extraordinary opportunity to think about what kind of Downtown we want visitors to experience—but, more importantly, what kind of Downtown residents should inherit afterward.
Let’s invest in things that remain useful long after the last Olympic visitor leaves.
Fresh food.
Jobs.
Active storefronts.
Walkability.
Neighborhood services.
A stronger Downtown.
What We Are Asking For
By signing this petition, we are asking:
TRADER JOE’S: Conduct a serious real-estate and market evaluation of Downtown Long Beach, including available properties along Historic Pine Avenue and the surrounding Downtown core.
CITY OF LONG BEACH: Help facilitate conversations among Trader Joe’s, property owners, developers, Planning & Development Services, economic-development representatives, and the Downtown community.
PROPERTY OWNERS & DEVELOPERS: Bring viable Downtown spaces forward and work creatively on parking, loading, lease structure, tenant improvements, and the requirements necessary to make an urban grocery store successful.
DOWNTOWN RESIDENTS, WORKERS & BUSINESSES: Sign this petition and help demonstrate the customer demand that already exists.
COLORING A DREAM INTO OUR NEIGHBORHOOD’S REALITY
As part of this community campaign, we have imagined multiple possibilities for what a Downtown Long Beach Trader Joe’s could look like.
Our illustrations aren’t architectural plans.
They’re an invitation to imagine something better.
Eight visions. Multiple possible locations. One Downtown community. One simple idea:
Let’s bring fresh groceries within walking distance of Downtown Long Beach.
If you live Downtown, work Downtown, own a Downtown business, visit Downtown—or simply believe Long Beach deserves a stronger and more livable urban core—please sign this petition.
Then share it with your neighbors.
Tell us why you would shop there.
Tell us how often you would shop there.
Tell Trader Joe’s why Downtown Long Beach should be its next neighborhood.
Together, we can demonstrate that the demand isn’t hypothetical.
The customers are already here.
BRING TRADER JOE’S TO DOWNTOWN LONG BEACH.
Fresh Food. Local Jobs. Active Storefronts. A More Livable Downtown.
This is an independent community-led petition. It is not sponsored, authorized, or endorsed by Trader Joe’s. Conceptual artwork used in connection with this campaign depicts hypothetical locations and is intended solely to illustrate the community proposal.
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The issue
Downtown Long Beach is becoming a true residential neighborhood. Now it needs a neighborhood grocery store.
Downtown Long Beach is growing.
Thousands of people live in apartments, condominiums, lofts, and new residential developments throughout Downtown. We walk our neighborhood. We support our local restaurants and businesses. We use Metro. We want Downtown to be a place where people can not only visit—but actually live their everyday lives.
Yet one basic neighborhood necessity remains frustratingly difficult for many Downtown residents:
Convenient, walkable access to a full-service grocery store with fresh food.
That is why we are asking Trader Joe’s, the City of Long Beach, Downtown property owners, developers, and community leaders to work together to bring a flagship Trader Joe’s to Downtown Long Beach.
Why Trader Joe’s? Why Downtown Long Beach?
Trader Joe’s is more than somewhere to buy groceries. Its neighborhood-scale stores can become part of the daily rhythm of a community.
Downtown Long Beach offers something extraordinary in return: a dense and growing residential population, historic commercial corridors, public transportation, visitors, hotels, local businesses, and multiple potential locations with access to parking.
We believe Downtown represents an opportunity for Trader Joe’s to create something special:
A FLAGSHIP URBAN TRADER JOE’S FOR LONG BEACH.
A store designed for a walkable Downtown neighborhood while still providing parking for customers who need it.
A store where residents can walk downstairs or a few blocks for produce, meat, dairy, prepared meals, flowers, pantry staples, and everyday groceries.
A store that brings consistent foot traffic back to Downtown storefronts.
And a store that celebrates the character, diversity, history, and unmistakable personality of Long Beach.
We Have More Than One Potential Location
This campaign is intentionally not dependent upon a single property.
We have identified multiple potential Downtown locations that deserve serious consideration, particularly along and around Historic Pine Avenue, including the 5th and 6th Street area.
Importantly, the locations being considered have existing or adjacent parking opportunities, while also benefiting from Downtown’s walkability and transit connections.
The conceptual images accompanying this petition demonstrate several possibilities. They are community-created visions and do not represent locations announced, selected, approved, or endorsed by Trader Joe’s.
We want Trader Joe’s and local stakeholders to determine which available property makes the most operational and economic sense.
The location can be flexible. The community need is not.
This Is About Fresh-Food Access
Downtown has restaurants, bars, entertainment, coffee shops, and convenience businesses.
Those things contribute enormously to Downtown life.
But living in a neighborhood also means being able to buy the ingredients for dinner.
It means picking up vegetables on the way home.
Milk. Eggs. Fruit. Bread. Meat. Household necessities.
It means seniors, people without cars, working families, people with disabilities, and residents who deliberately chose a walkable lifestyle having reasonable access to everyday groceries.
A thriving Downtown cannot be built entirely around entertainment and visitors.
It must work for the people who live here.
Historic Pine Avenue Could Become a Neighborhood Main Street Again
A grocery anchor could also help address another challenge facing Downtown: underutilized storefronts and the need for consistent pedestrian activity.
Restaurants generate activity at particular times.
Entertainment brings people Downtown for events.
A neighborhood grocery store generates trips morning, afternoon, evening, seven days a week.
Those customers also walk past coffee shops, restaurants, salons, retailers, and other Downtown businesses.
Putting an essential everyday use into the Downtown core isn’t just about groceries.
It is economic development.
And Long Beach Is About to Welcome the World
Long Beach will play an important role in the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
That creates an extraordinary opportunity to think about what kind of Downtown we want visitors to experience—but, more importantly, what kind of Downtown residents should inherit afterward.
Let’s invest in things that remain useful long after the last Olympic visitor leaves.
Fresh food.
Jobs.
Active storefronts.
Walkability.
Neighborhood services.
A stronger Downtown.
What We Are Asking For
By signing this petition, we are asking:
TRADER JOE’S: Conduct a serious real-estate and market evaluation of Downtown Long Beach, including available properties along Historic Pine Avenue and the surrounding Downtown core.
CITY OF LONG BEACH: Help facilitate conversations among Trader Joe’s, property owners, developers, Planning & Development Services, economic-development representatives, and the Downtown community.
PROPERTY OWNERS & DEVELOPERS: Bring viable Downtown spaces forward and work creatively on parking, loading, lease structure, tenant improvements, and the requirements necessary to make an urban grocery store successful.
DOWNTOWN RESIDENTS, WORKERS & BUSINESSES: Sign this petition and help demonstrate the customer demand that already exists.
COLORING A DREAM INTO OUR NEIGHBORHOOD’S REALITY
As part of this community campaign, we have imagined multiple possibilities for what a Downtown Long Beach Trader Joe’s could look like.
Our illustrations aren’t architectural plans.
They’re an invitation to imagine something better.
Eight visions. Multiple possible locations. One Downtown community. One simple idea:
Let’s bring fresh groceries within walking distance of Downtown Long Beach.
If you live Downtown, work Downtown, own a Downtown business, visit Downtown—or simply believe Long Beach deserves a stronger and more livable urban core—please sign this petition.
Then share it with your neighbors.
Tell us why you would shop there.
Tell us how often you would shop there.
Tell Trader Joe’s why Downtown Long Beach should be its next neighborhood.
Together, we can demonstrate that the demand isn’t hypothetical.
The customers are already here.
BRING TRADER JOE’S TO DOWNTOWN LONG BEACH.
Fresh Food. Local Jobs. Active Storefronts. A More Livable Downtown.
This is an independent community-led petition. It is not sponsored, authorized, or endorsed by Trader Joe’s. Conceptual artwork used in connection with this campaign depicts hypothetical locations and is intended solely to illustrate the community proposal.
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Petition created on 5 October 2026