Improve Your Footprint: On Earth or In Space

WHA’s Urban Studio team has become more involved in tenant improvement projects over the past few years. Employees beginning to return to offices, the Aerospace industry returning to the Long Beach area, and the desire for businesses to stay on trend for customer appeal are some reasons why we are seeing an influx of tenant improvements and have been eager to dive into this sector of work.

Farmers and Merchants Bank relocated their branch in Lakewood to a 6-story office building in 2020. The building is a focal point on Lakewood Boulevard as one of the tallest buildings in the city. To transform the space, our team retrofitted the existing building and created an attractive interior space with refined finishes. These improvements not only draw new and existing customers in for business but also provide employees with a contemporary office space to work in.

Frontwave Arena in Oceanside is a multi-purpose 7,500-seat indoor arena that is projected to open in September 2024 to host the Major Arena Soccer League’s San Diego Sockers and the NBA G League’s San Diego Clippers. A previous WHA project, Ventana at El Corazon, sits across the street from the project, and Frontwave reached out to our team to assist with designing office spaces in the 2 retail buildings located at the entrance of Ventana at El Corazon as their construction offices for the arena.

WHA’s Urban Studio has also been thrilled to indulge in opportunities with aerospace companies like Spin Launch and SpaceX! SpinLaunch is a satellite manufacturer that uses a ground-based electric-powered kinetic launch system that can launch satellites into orbit by achieving hypersonic launch speeds without the need for enormous power generation or massive infrastructure. SpinLaunch requested our expertise for interior remodels in their offices including an LED feature wall, Star Wars inspired conference rooms, and revised layouts to aid efficiency in their manufacturing warehouse.

SpaceX laid its roots at Vandenberg Space Force Base in 2015. Situated in Santa Barbara, SpaceX started at the Space Launch Complex – 4 (SLC-4) and expanded to Space Launch Complex – 6 (SLC-4) in April 2023. SpaceX’s goal was to reinvent the Starlink satellite facility they had been using at SLC-4 at a much larger scale. SLC-6 is a more expansive complex, so it has been a very exciting challenge to help design.

Social media makes any opportunity a photo opportunity, which means that impressive interiors are crucial to getting customers in the door. Mostra Coffee on Carmel Mountain Road in San Diego is no exception. Mostra Coffee’s mission is specialty coffee centered around sustainability, inclusion, and bringing people together around the world. To reflect this, we renovated their first brick-and-mortar shop to include industrial interiors that are unique, bold, and sure to be perfect for that morning coffee post to social media.

Retail is a staple in the residential mixed-use sector of housing. Often, the retail portions of buildings are utilized to activate the streets and communities they serve. AMCAL’s Las Ventanas Family Apartments in the heart of downtown Long Beach aims to do just this with the addition of a rental bike storefront. Long Beach is known as a bike-friendly city with rental bikes conveniently located all over. The addition of the rental bike shop will offer a much-needed service to locals.

Whether it is creating unique office spaces, attractive interior retrofits with refined finishes, out-of-this-world manufacturing buildings and offices for aerospace components, or boutique retail spaces that activate city streets and communities — WHA and the Urban Studio team enjoy reimagining these interiors for tenants and customers alike.