January 2004 Archives

An interesting study commissioned by the City of Riverside elevates the city's status in the high-income bracket.

The data


2003
Alessandro Heights
Riverside

The 11-page study took data from the 2000 Census and compared Riverside's high-income residents with those of other large Southern California cities (15,000+ households). Of over 100 Southern California cities surveyed, Riverside ranked 8th in the total number of households earning $75,000 or more -- just under those of Anaheim and Irvine, but ahead of loftier places the likes of Newport Beach, Mission Viejo, and Pasadena.

A portion of the report indicates that the average income for 41,000 households in Riverside is $94,000. Excepting the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, few cities in Southern California can match that statistic.

The goal was to show that even though a large and diverse city such as Riverside may indeed have overall per capita numbers that fall somewhere in the middle, the extrapolation of the city's sheer numbers tell a different story. This lack of extrapolation is the problem with many of today's stats-dominated retail specialists, in which aggregated data can hide and homogenize data within a given city or area. This is especially true with larger, more diverse cities, where sheer numbers get watered down -- even lost -- in the modeling methods, thereby almost always failing to tell the complete story.

Because of these generalized methods (not to mention assumptions), Riverside has struggled somewhat the past 5 years in consistently attracting more of the high-end retailers that tend to swarm to Southern California's newer, master-planned suburban enclaves. Sure, the city has 1 of the 2 Nordstroms in the immediate area and is by no means a retail wasteland, but a few of the other highly sought-after retailers (such as Crate&Barrel) have been dragging their feet in setting up shop.

This report should gently remind them that by sheer numbers alone, Riverside's high-income households are hard to beat.

It appears the Redlands Mall will be no more as a sale to a Newport Beach-based developer appears imminent.

2001
Redlands Mall


2001
Redlands Mall

The buyer, Hopkins Real Estate Group, has ambitious plans for the 12-acre site. Plans call for replacing the mall with an urban village development that will include both commercial and residential. Such a development should fit very nicely within the existing historic downtown area, itself a modest form of an urban village.

The proposed development is all part of Redlands' recent efforts at maintaining the vibrancy of the downtown district. The city has plans for 2 parking structures and is actively pursuing the addition of a high-end, business-class hotel. The mall's site is seen as a primary component in the city's overall plans for the downtown area.

Opened in 1977, the Mall anchors the west end of downtown Redlands' State Street historic district. Tiny by traditional indoor mall standards, the approximately 200,000 square-foot mall has helped keep the downtown district brimming with activity during its 25-plus years.

The mall's primary tenant over the years has been a Harris-Gottschalk.