IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
JCPenney will soon be Inland Center Mall’s fourth anchor tenant.
The department store chain will open a two-level, 138,000-square-foot store at the San Bernardino mall this fall, according to a statement released by Santa Monica-based Macerich, Inland Center’s owner.
About 150 people are expected to work there, said Arun Parmar, Inland Center’s property manager.
That site has been vacant since 2009 when Gottschalks declared bankruptcy and left the mall. JC Penney will join Macy’s, Forever 21 and Sears as anchor tenants.
“We’re thrilled,” Parmar said this morning. “It’s not only great to get a new anchor tenant, it’s great to be filling in space that has been vacant for so long. JCPenney is performing well in Redlands, Riverside and Rancho Cucamonga, so it should do well in San Bernardino.”
Workers have already begun retrofitting the site, and the store is expected to be ready for the holiday shopping season without any difficulty, Parmar said.
Rumors have been circulating for several months about a tenant having been found for the former Gottschalks site, but the name JCPenney didn’t surface until Wednesday, said Colin Strange, director of business services for the San Bernardino Area Chamber of Commerce.
“This should be a tremendous boost for the mall,” Strange said. “It’s going to help economically and psychologically. I think it’s great for the whole city.”
