Royal Treatment: How Urban Commons Is Restoring The Queen Mary

By Pierce Nahigyan

While the Queen Mary is arguably the most iconic fixture of the Long Beach skyline – and one of the most historic – she has hardly been treated like royalty. For decades, the city’s landmark fell into major disrepair. That’s all changing with new leadership and a long-term plan to transform the Queen into a major entertainment venue.

When real estate developer Urban Commons (UC) took over the Queen’s lease in 2016, the boiler room – a cavernous space utilized for its “Ghosts and Legends” tour – had been turned into a junkyard. “When I say junkyard, I mean junkyard,” UC Chief Development Officer Dan Zaharoni told the Business Journal during a tour of the ship. Steel, construction materials, drywall and old furniture were heaped in piles and inundated with black water. “It was six feet high,” he said of the mess. “There was standing water there for decades.”