Luxury Retailers Head Inland
Nationally known retailers and restaurateurs once feared to tread in Southern California’s Inland Empire, according to David White. He is a city official of Riverside, Calif., entrusted to pitch these companies to build in the once-scrappy blue-collar area more than 50 miles east of Los Angeles.
“Two years ago, California Pizza Kitchen and P.F. Chang’s wouldn’t talk to us. They thought we were crazy when we contacted them. Now they’re moving here,” said White, Riverside’s business attraction manager.
The reason for the change of fortune is that cities in San Bernardino and Riverside counties have been experiencing unprecedented growth over the past decade.
In Riverside, the county seat, 48.7 percent of the city’s households earned more than $50,000 in 2005, according to market research company ESRI Business Solutions. That prosperity has spread throughout much of the region.
A number of the area’s residents moved from Los Angeles and Orange counties to get more bang for their housing buck. The median price for a home in Riverside/San Bernardino is $394,840, compared to a statewide average of $538,770, according to data from the California Association of Realtors. When they moved to the area, these new residents bought their upscale-shopping preferences with them. For a while, they had to endure long trips on congested freeways to find designer jeans and higher-end suits. But in the past two years, retail has come to them.
In October 2004, developer Forest City Enterprises opened Victoria Gardens in the San Bernardino County town of Rancho Cucamonga. The lifestyle center features retailers such as Anthropologie, Abercrombie & Fitch and Bebe.
Rancho Cucamonga saw a 30 percent increase in sales tax during the second quarter of 2005 compared to the previous year; 40 percent of that increase was earned by Victoria Gardens retailers, according to Mike Nelson, Rancho Cucamonga’s senior development analyst. Other cities in the Inland Empire were soon scheduled to build luxury shopping centers.
In 2005, a remodel transformed 50-yearold Riverside Plaza in Riverside from an indoor mall to a lifestyle center with a faux main street. Also this year, the Galleria at Tyler shopping center, owned by General Growth Properties Inc., welcomed hip specialty retailers to the mall such as Metropark, Jimmy’Z, Zumiez and Beach Bums. The mall, anchored by Fresno, Calif.–based Gottschalks department store, is the site that Pacific Sunwear chose to debut its prototype store in July.
General Growth plans to build a 120,000- square-foot lifestyle-center addition to the Galleria property in late 2006. Another center will be built in Corona, Calif., during the same time period. Poag & McEwen Lifestyle Centers, a Memphis-based developer that claims to have coined the term “lifestyle center,” will build the 60-store The Promenade at Dos Lagos in Corona.
Several gargantuan shopping centers featuring big-box stores are also planned for the area in 2006. With the plethora of new shopping centers being built, retailers are finding many good reasons to move to the area.
Metropark, a new contemporary boutique chain featuring such up-and-coming brands as Howe, Obey and Rock & Republic, felt the area was as viable a location for a shop as Orange County, said company President Lawrence Tanenbaum. “We took a look at the market and felt it offered a customer who’s connected to fashion,” he said. “They’re out there in full force.”
As it is in the rest of the state, denim is the top seller at Metropark in Riverside, according to Renee Bell, the company’s general merchandise manager. The most popular jeans are Rock & Republic, with price points of $189–$259; True Religion’s Joey denim fetches prices up to $239; and Paige Premium Denim, $189.
The top-selling tops are T-shirts by Salvage, $59, and Obey, whose price points are $29–$39. Caps by Ed Hardy also are top sellers, with price points of $50–$70.
Jeans are in high demand at Bella’s Boutique, a women’s boutique at Riverside Plaza that was opened in May by Angela Myers, wife of former Toronto Blue Jays catcher Greg Myers.
Top sellers include True Religion’s Joey jeans, $196, and The Rocker denim, $158, from Joe’s Jeans. Other popular items include sweat suits by Juicy Couture; price points for pants are $98–$107.
Tops are $88–$158. T-shirts manufactured by Los Angeles–based Junk Food are popular, with prices of $20–$25. Myers will open another Bella’s Boutique at The Promenade Shops at Dos Lagos next year, according to store managers Tanya Obermeyer and Kristen Campbell.
A couple of storefronts down, Kristi Kauffman and her husband, Mark, run Delicious Delights. The store, which opened in June, sells high-end jeans, but it also offers $9 Tshirts. “We understand the market,” said Mark, who also is the president of advertising firm Media Imaging Co. Inc., whose clients include Warner Bros. “We wanted to bring L.A. brands here, but we didn’t want to rush into it.”
The store’s top sellers include the Swarovski crystal–emblazoned jeans by the aptly named manufacturer Bejeweled, based in Florida. Price points are $80–$120. There’s Toronto-based Parasuco, whose $170 jeans proclaim “Rock Me Baby” in rhinestones. Tattoo-inspired T-shirts by Ed Hardy are a top seller. The brand’s basic tees cost $55, and T-shirts with rhinestones cost $90.
