The Long Beach City Council has requested clarity about progress on the final phase of the Colorado Lagoon Open Channel project — which has been ongoing for years, to the chagrin of some residents in the surrounding neighborhoods.
Work on the Colorado Lagoon, a saltwater tidal lagoon that was once directly connected to Alamitos Bay and is currently connected to Marine Stadium via a culvert under Marina Vista Park, has been ongoing for decades.
But the final phase of the project, which will turn that culvert into an open channel connecting the lagoon to Marine Stadium, began in earnest in 2022. The project, according to the city, will increase water quality in the lagoon, and preserve and expand recreational opportunities for residents, including swimming.
“It’s going to be beautiful once it is finished, but we need to be really candid about how this project has unfolded and the impact it has had on the surrounding community,” Kristina Duggan, who represents the Third District, where the lagoon is located, said during the Tuesday, March 24, council meeting.
Once the final phase of construction on the project began in 2022, Duggan said, the city made the decision to close down Colorado and Eliot streets to allow for construction traffic. The city initially estimated those streets would reopen in the fall of 2024, meaning there would be about an 18-month closure.
The clouds hang over Colorado Lagoon the morning after a rain in Long Beach on Monday, March 23, 2020. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)
People enjoying the day and the mild weather at Colorado Lagoon in Long Beach on Thursday, June 3, 2021. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)
Area resident Sam Rosado walks his dogs Wicket and Maddie across the Colorado Lagoon foot bridge on Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Long Beach, where a light breeze made for more comfortable temperatures. (Photo by Howard Freshman, Contributing Photographer)
Show Caption
1 of 3
The clouds hang over Colorado Lagoon the morning after a rain in Long Beach on Monday, March 23, 2020. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)
But because of various delays and other issues discovered at the project site, Colorado and Eliot streets remain closed to this day — with no clear timeline on when they’re set to reopen, Duggan said.
“That gap between expectation and reality is why residents are so frustrated, why I’m so frustrated with this,” Duggan said. “We need an end date. People made plans around what they were told would be a temporary disruption — 18 months — and instead, it has stretched on for more than three years.”
A major contributor to that delay was the discovery of 17 unmapped utility lines at the construction site, according to a February 2025 city update, which had not been identified during pre-construction work.
Some of those undiscovered utilities, the city said, were found to have “asbestos-containing materials,” and the majority of those ACMs were located beneath Colorado and Eliot streets. Once those materials were discovered, the city said, Long Beach was required to clean them up — a time-consuming process monitored by an environmental consultant to ensure proper handling and disposal of the contaminated materials.
Progress on the project, the city’s report said, was also hindered by rain and other weather impacts, the age of existing underground infrastructure such as sewer systems, managing the groundwater on site, and other challenges.
The city has been providing updates about construction on the project via its Colorado Lagoon Open Channel Project website and other methods since 2022, but Duggan on Tuesday argued that communication moving forward needs to be clearer.
“Communication on the timeline over the years has been a very frustrating point. Completion dates have shifted many times, and now the estimate for reopening the roads is sometime this summer, with no estimate on when the actual project will be completed,” Duggan said. “We can’t manage our infrastructure projects without knowing when they’re going to be finished, and after 39 months, residents deserve more clarity and more certainty than having an open ended completion date.”
To that end, Duggan requested a report back from the city manager’s office asking for an overview of the project, the causes of construction delays and the anticipated timeline for project completion.
“This is ultimately about accountability and trust with regard to projects that the city supports and pushes forward. When projects extend this far beyond their original timeline, it affects how residents view future infrastructure investments across the city,” Duggan said. “So while, of course, I support the project and the outcome, we really need answers.”
The city’s latest update about the project, posted to its website in March, says that Long Beach has made significant progress on underground utility work and site preparation near the Colorado Street Bridge and Marina Vista Park.
The report requested by Duggan will be brought back to the City Council within 30 days.