Downtown Riverside looks to become a destination

Multiple projects are either about to open or are being planned, including nearly 1,000 residential units, according to city officials.

The first tenants moved into the Imperial Hardware Lofts project in Riverside last week, and Miguel Baeza couldn’t he happier.

Baeza owns Mezcal Cantina y Cocina at 3737 Main St. The 100-seat restaurant is a block or so from Imperial Hardware Lofts, a 100-year-old building that is being converted to a retail and residential project in the heart of downtown.

Baeza bought the business from its original owners four years ago, one year after the business opened. It’s performed well since, serving a menu of basic Mexican cuisine.

But any restaurant can use more pedestrian traffic, which is why Baeza is delighted to see the long-planned Imperial Hardware Lofts project finally happening.

“I’m happy that the city is doing so much to get more people downtown,” said Baeza, a Riverside resident since 2000. “They’re being very proactive, and that’s good. The more people you get downtown the more it will help businesses.”

The Imperial Hardware Lofts project is the centerpiece of Riverside’s downtown redevelopment effort, said Nathan Freeman, the city’s senior development project manager and the person in charge of overseeing that effort.

Once a destination location, the Imperial Hardware building is at 3750 Main St., about one block from the Mission Inn & Spa. It covers about 8,000 square feet and is more than 100 years old, but its last tenant vacated the property in the late 1980s and it fell into disrepair.

The city’s former redevelopment agency bought the building in 2006 and sold 10 years later to Ratkovich Properties in Irvine. Ratkovich approached the city with a plan to preserve the building’s historic facade and build a mixed-use project that would overlook Main St.

Imperial Hardware Lofts, held its grand opening Aug. 16, by which time it was 50 percent pre-leased. When completed it will have one floor of retail topped by five levels of residential lofts. The 8,000-square-foot retail component will be anchored by The Salted Pig restaurant, a local favorite and the Inland region’s first “gastropub,” according to a city statement.

The finished product will be much like Paseo Colorado in Pasadena, a retail-residential project on Colorado Boulevard east of Old Town.

Imperial Hardware Lofts is one of several mixed-use projects expected to attract more businesses and residents to downtown Riverside and turn the area into a 24-hour destination.

“The renaissance continues in downtown Riverside,” Mayor Rusty Bailey said. “Imperial Hardware Lofts is the centerpiece of what we’re doing downtown, and it’s going to be part of the heartbeat of the city, along with the Mission Inn and the Fox [Performing Arts Center].”

Downtown Riverside’s revitalization began in 2007 with Riverside Renaissance, in which the city invested about $1.5 billion in infrastructure upgrades and other public improvements throughout the city.

“We set ourselves up for this during the recession when no one was developing anything,” Bailey said. “Now that investment is starting to pay off. In a way, this is like the second phase of Renaissance Riverside.”

Close to 1,000 housing units are planned for downtown Riverside. That will help attract businesses, create jobs and generate more sales tax revenue, Bailey said.

Riverside Renaissance has already helped bring development and upgrades to downtown Riverside, including the Class A Citrus Tower office building, expansion of Riverside Community Hospital, a new fire station, expansion of the convention center and Hyatt Hotel and a renovation of the Fox Performing Arts Center.

Besides Imperial Hardware Lofts, 11 major development projects are being developed downtown, including:

• A downtown library, which is being planned and reviewed. It will replace the library at 3581 Mission Inn Ave., which will become the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture and Industry.
• Riverside Food Lab at 3605 Market St., which will hold a soft opening Thursday and a grand opening Sept. 20.
• The Hampton Inn, a 149-room operation under construction at Market and 5th streets. It is expected to be completed within the next year.
• The Stalder Building at Mission Inn Avenue and Market Street across from the Fox Performing Arts Center. It’s being converted into residential units and 20,000 square feet of commercial space. Construction is expected to start next month and take 18 to 24 months to complete.
• A 160-room Hilton Hotel which will he built at Mission Inn Ave. and Lime Street. That property is occupied by a fire station that will be converted into a restaurant and the hotel’s lobby. The hotel is expected to be ready in 2020.

More people want to live and work downtown, Freeman said.

“There’s a trend now of people wanting to get away from the suburbs, away from having to take care of a large yard,” Freeman said. “People want to be able to walk to work, they want to be able to walk to a restaurant and have dinner, and we’re benefitting from that trend.”

Riversides’s downtown redevelopment efforts are headed in the right direction, Baeza said.

“I’ve seen a lot of things happen in downtown Riverside since I’ve been here, and I like what I’m seeing now,” Baeza said.