Kelly Stroman, executive director of the Downtown Manhattan Beach Business and Professionals Association, put it plainly to a local reporter this summer: the turnover happening on Manhattan Beach Boulevard and Manhattan Avenue right now is unprecedented, and everyone downtown is talking about it. If you've walked those blocks in the last few weeks, you already knew that before she said it. What the running tally of openings and closings doesn't tell you is who is actually winning all that turnover. Look closely at the specific storefronts changing hands this summer, and a pattern shows up that has less to do with speed and more to do with size.
Nine leases, one direction
Here is what has moved, or is about to move, into nine specific spaces across downtown since early summer.
| Location | Who left | Who's moving in | What it signals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metlox Plaza | previously vacant | Bacio di Latte, gelato | multi-location brand, now open |
| Former Lemonade space, Metlox Plaza | Lemonade | Sogna Toscana | regional chain out, patio already approved by the Planning Commission |
| Former Peet's Coffee, MB Blvd | Peet's Coffee | Blank Street Coffee | one coffee chain replaced by a faster-growing one |
| Former Gum Tree, MB Blvd | Gum Tree, longtime local boutique and café | Beyond Yoga | local independent out, national apparel brand in |
| Former Gelato & Angels, MB Blvd | Gelato & Angels | Velvet by Graham & Spencer | small shop out, multi-location retailer in |
| Former Pitfire, MB Blvd | Pitfire Pizza | Great White | one restaurant replaced by another |
| Former Rolling Hills Flower Mart, Manhattan Ave | Rolling Hills Flower Mart | Ounce of Salt, jewelry by local Jen Baick | independent to independent, the exception |
| Former Kate Lester Home, Manhattan Ave | Kate Lester Home, local design shop | Framebridge | local independent out, national framing chain in |
| Former Nando, Manhattan Ave | Nando Trattoria | Coucou | single restaurant replaced by a bistro already running in Venice and West Hollywood |
Read down that right column and the direction holds even without tallying every name on the list. Beyond Yoga, a national apparel brand, is taking the space Gum Tree leaves behind. Framebridge, a national framing chain, is set to fill the old Kate Lester Home space this fall. Coucou, already running successfully in Venice and West Hollywood, took over the old Nando space on Manhattan Avenue. Against that, Ounce of Salt, Jen Baick's new jewelry storefront, is the one true solo debut on this list, and it's landing in a space that was itself held by another small independent business. Gum Tree isn't disappearing from town. It's relocating to a smaller space nearby after losing its lease, which is its own kind of answer: even a business locals already loved couldn't hold its footprint against what came next. Walstory closed last month too, with no tenant announced yet.
None of this makes downtown worse to walk. Coucou and Beyond Yoga both bring real followings, and a coffee brand growing fast enough to take a former Peet's space says more about what downtown rents can now command than it does about any weakness in Peet's. But it does mean the character of a walk through downtown this fall will lean more toward names you may already recognize from other coastal neighborhoods, and less toward a single owner betting everything on one address for the first time. If downtown has started to feel a little more like a well-curated collection and a little less like the block you remember, that's the reason. It isn't atmosphere. It's the ownership structure behind nine specific leases.
The two empty lots that will decide what comes next
The storefront churn is happening at the same moment the city is close to deciding what replaces two of downtown's largest remaining sites, and the direction on both points the same way.
Lot 3, the former three-story, 145-space parking structure at Morningside Drive and 12th Street, came down in late 2024 after engineers flagged seismic problems. It's been a 69-space surface lot ever since. In mid-July, the city unveiled two concepts for what replaces it. Option A puts 129 spaces underground across three levels and opens up three stories above ground for retail, restaurants, and a shared community patio, with two restaurant spaces angled for different views: one toward Metlox Plaza and the Tree Section, one facing north and west with a look at the ocean. Option B skips the underground garage for 200 surface spaces, 71 more than Option A, but gives up the ground-floor retail and restaurant space entirely, keeping only a third-floor community patio.
A few blocks over, 400 Manhattan Beach Boulevard, the former US Bank building the city bought in 2025, is being planned as a two-story anchor building with three food and beverage spaces on the ground floor, opening onto a new plaza built around a stretch of Morningside Drive that would close to cars with retractable bollards. The second floor is planned for creative office space with a patio catching sunset views down the block.
Both concepts were shaped directly by what residents told the city they wanted: more parking, more public open space, more outdoor dining. Those are reasonable asks, and the city built its answer around them. But look at what the answer adds up to. The preferred direction for downtown's two biggest open parcels is built on the same formula already reshaping the private storefronts around them: multiple food and beverage anchors, shared patio space, and a layout designed to draw people through rather than to give one independent tenant room to find its footing. Trilogy Spa already relocated to a space directly across from the future Lot 3 site, a sign that at least one existing business is positioning itself around what's coming rather than waiting to see how it lands.
The next public checkpoint is a Project Pulse study session at City Hall on August 26, with the City Council expected to settle on a direction for both sites in the weeks that follow. Whatever they choose will lock in the shape of downtown's two largest sites for years, layered on top of a storefront mix already leaning the same direction.
What actually changes on your next walk downtown
If you're heading to Manhattan Beach Boulevard this month expecting the same walk you took in the spring, budget a few extra minutes. Bacio di Latte is open in Metlox Plaza. Coucou has already taken over the old Nando space on Manhattan Avenue, serving French bistro classics with a California accent. Great White is close behind in the former Pitfire space. Ounce of Salt, Jen Baick's new jewelry storefront, is the one true local debut worth pausing for this season, precisely because it's the exception rather than the rule.
None of this is a reason to avoid downtown. If anything, the density of openings gives you more reasons to walk it, not fewer. But the mechanism behind the turnover is worth naming plainly. This summer's wave rewarded operators who already had the capital and the track record to move fast into a vacant lease, not new local owners testing an idea for the first time. The city's own plans for Lot 3 and 400 MBB suggest that's the model downtown will keep leaning on, by design, for years to come.
Let's Connect
Understanding what a neighborhood is becoming, not just what it looks like on any given weekend, is the kind of groundwork that makes a real estate conversation useful instead of generic. If you're watching how downtown Manhattan Beach is evolving and want to talk through what it might mean down the line, GlobalPoint is a call away.
