Inland Roundup - 09/26/2006

A roundup of local items making the news...

With the announcement of a location at the Galleria at Tyler in Riverside, The Cheesecake Factory joins a growing list of upscale chains flocking to Inland Southern California:

2006
Nordstrom - Galleria at Tyler


2002
Cajon Street - downtown Redlands


2006
M Sole - downtown Riverside

The Riverside location will be the chain's third Inland restaurant following Rancho Cucamonga and Rancho Mirage. The addition of TCF, which is part of the Galleria's current expansion plans (P.F. Chang's, Yard House, Elephant Bar, Robbins Bros. and AMC Theaters), comes on the heels of other Inland retail hot spots -- including Corona's soon-to-open Promenade Shops at Dos Lagos and Rancho Cucamonga's Victoria Gardens -- in landing highly-sought tenants.

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Plans for a mixed-use development in downtown Redlands solidified recently as Krikorian Theaters released updated details of its expansion plans, which includes lofts, apartments and condos above new retail. Without a doubt, downtown Redlands has been ripe for such mixed-use options. Fortunately, it appears Krikorian understands the need to integrate the expansion within the existing historical character of downtown Redlands:

The Redlands project joins similar mixed-use developments planned or proposed for other areas of Inland Southern Califorina, in particular, the downtowns of both Ontario and Riverside.

In Ontario, ground was broken recently for the ambitious Ontario Town Square, which includes residential and retail uses within the city's civic center -- an area of mostly empty lots, many of which were razed years ago during urban renewal, but never fully redeveloped. Meanwhile, Riverside also has multiple mixed-use projects planned for downtown along the Market Street corridor, of which approval was recently given for the first phase of M Sole.

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Finally, the I-215 corridor around March Air Reserve Base southeast of Riverside, which includes DHL's west coast distribution hub, continues gaining momentum as commercial activity pushes further east. Recently opened were portions of the master-planned Meridian business park while the nation's largest speculative industrial building is currently under construction in Perris. Also, the joint powers commission overseeing redevelopment of the civilian portions of March ARB agreed this past week to explore limited passenger service at the joint military-civilian airfield -- a proposition outlined in SCAG's Regional Transportation Plan (2004).

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Related

• The Cheesecake Factory


• Galleria at Tyler


• The Promenade Shops at Dos Lagos


• Victoria Gardens


• J.H. Snyder Co. (Ontario Town Square)


• Meridian Riverside


• Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG)