From Factories to Fun

The Inland Empire Is Growing Up

Long a bastion for super-size warehouses and single-family homes, Riverside and San Bernardino counties are becoming more diverse. Victoria Gardens, an enormous and elegant mixed-use village in Rancho Cucamonga, will include 1.3 million sq. ft. of high-end retail space

By Paul Napolitano

Renee Jefferson needed detailed driving directions when she took her 11-year-old daughter to a sporting event at UCLA last summer.

The 42-year-old Fontana woman was born and reared in the western San Bernardino County city of Ontario—about 60 mi. east of UCLA. She works 10 mi. to the east in the city of San Bernardino and seldom travels to Orange or Los Angeles counties.

Several buildings at Victoria Gardens will be clad in Portuguese limestone and topped with copper domes (photo, above, by Paul Napolitano; rendering, below, courtesy of Altoon + Porter Architects).

Jefferson lives 40 mi. from the architecturally inspiring Disney Concert Hall—home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She lives about the same distance from hundreds of restaurants in south Orange County.

She can count on one hand the number of times she's been to O.C. in the past 10 years, and she needs no fingers to tabulate her trips to the hall.

But then Jefferson, an administrator for the San Bernardino Country Sheriff's Department, doesn't need to travel. As San Bernardino and Riverside counties—also known as the Inland Empire—mature into a self-serving region, Jefferson and plenty of her neighbors are finding a full-day's worth of entertainment options in their own counties.

"It's not as if I don't like those places, but we just rarely feel the need to go there for fun," Jefferson said while watching daughter Jourdan play tennis at The Claremont Club, 12 mi. from her home.

A tantalizing place such as the new Victoria Gardens may keep Jefferson and thousands of other fun-seekers from venturing farther than Fontana's neighbor, Rancho Cucamonga, a fast-growing city of 132,000.

In addition to a 16-screen AMC Theatres, the 147-acre Victoria Gardens village in Cucamonga will have about 1.3 million sq. ft. of retail space.

The $152 million shopping area—being built by Arkansas-based Vratsinas Construction Co.—is an instant downtown.

More than 500 construction workers are creating a North Main Street and a South Main Street with two major cross streets where visitors will stroll past upscale national chain stores on 15-ft. sidewalks and under a variety of mature trees such as eucalyptus and Chinese elm.

The view looking east on what will be called North Main Street, above (photo by Paul Napolitano). Diners at Food Hall, a block-long row of eating establishments, will experience a dramatic view of the nearby San Bernardino Mountains, below (rendering courtesy of Altoon + Porter Architects).

In addition to 400,000 sq. ft. of open-air retail stores, Cucamonga's new "downtown" will have four parks, several fountains, greenbelts, plazas, a 530-seat performing arts center/library, and 60,000-sq. ft. of office space. There also will be three major department stores: a 180,000-sq.-ft. Robinson's-May (built by Dolan Construction), 132,000-sq.-ft. JC Penney (Law Co.) and 180,000-sq.-ft. Macy's (Swinerton Builders).

And when shoppers get hungry, they can fill up in the block-long Food Hall and experience a dramatic view of the nearby San Bernardino Mountains from the hall's floor-to-ceiling windows.

"This is the most unique project that I have ever worked on," said Jed Bohn III, project manager for Vratsinas Construction Co., one of the largest retail construction companies in the United States.

Bohn has had his hands full monitoring the "15 different types of stones" imported from around the world, which will be used as high-end finishes on many of the buildings. Portuguese limestone will grace the facades of the town square buildings. As of this month, "the shells will be substantially complete so TI can commence," Bohn said from his jobsite trailer. The summer schedule of construction includes graphics, landscape, hardscape and decorative concrete work.

The east end of Victoria Gardens is located next to Interstate 15. The south end is bordered by Foothill Boulevard, and Church Street is to the north. Day Creek Boulevard runs south from the 210 Freeway into the mixed-use community.

"Motorists on the 15 [freeway] heading to Las Vegas will be able to look down Main Street," said Jim Auld, project manager for the project's executive architect, Altoon + Porter of Los Angeles. "That will be the calling card."

When motorists look from their car windows, they'll see blocks of storefronts with varying designs, intended to give the impression that the "downtown" evolved over time.

"Developers from around the country will be watching the success of this project," Auld said. "This is a project that can be repeated in a lot of different communities in America."

Victoria Gardens is expected to generate more than $5 million in new retail sales tax, property tax and business license taxes annually, according to the city of Rancho Cucamonga. These revenues will help pay for the costs of municipal services, such as police and fire, and recreational programs increasingly needed for the citizens of the fast-growing city.

Victoria Gardens also is expected to create more than 3,000 new permanent and part-time jobs.

"This is going to be really something," said Vivian James, 53, of Fontana and a friend of Jefferson as she looked at renderings of Victoria Gardens. "I can't wait until it opens. I'll be down there a lot."