Ontario changes direction on Meredith property

Once envisioned as a gateway to the Inland Empire that would be anchored by high-end office projects, the 250-acre parcel at Interstate 10 and Archibald Avenue is now the Meredith International Centre and is a mix of retail, residential and industrial. Office development will likely go in other parts of the city. 

Back when he was Ontario’s city manager, Greg Devereaux had big plans for the empty 250-acre piece of land known as the Meredith Property.

Devereaux, who was the city’s top executive from 1997 to 2010, wanted that parcel of land on the north side of Interstate 10 at Vineyard Avenue to be home to commercial development and, most of all, Class-A office buildings.

Now a consultant whose clients include the city of Ontario, Devereaux envisioned a scaled down version of Century City that would be the unofficial entryway to the Inland Empire, perfectly located at the western border of San Bernardino County.

Devereaux pushed that idea, although he admits the concept didn’t begin with him but with the Meredith Family Trust in Tustin, which originally owned the entire site and still owns the 20 to 25 acres that remain undeveloped.

“That idea originally came from a plan that Craig Meredith wrote, and everyone in the city [administration] seemed to agree with it,” said Devereaux, who retired as San Bernardino County’s chief executive officer two years ago. “I agreed with it too.”

What Meredith left out of his recommendation for the property was probably as important as what he put into it. Warehouse-distribution projects – what the Inland Empire is probably best known for – would not be built there, nor would any other industrial development.

Like now, logistics projects were being built throughout the Inland region. Putting one on the Meredith property would only lessen a site that Ontario officials hoped would grow into a regional landmark.

“I think they wanted to say ‘commerce,’ and nothing says ‘commerce’ like Class-A office buildings,” City Manager Scott Ochoa said. “If that’s the message you’re trying to send, then you’re going to go after that kind of building.”

From a strictly development perspective the Meredith property was a marvel, perhaps unique in the western United States. Besides being next to Interstate 10 and only a few miles from the Interstate 10-15 interchange, the site is a short ride from Ontario International Airport. 

It was also pristine, requiring only a few infrastructure improvements, and so flat it appeared to need little if any grading. All in all, the ideal place to develop Class-A office space along with some retail, and maybe attract several corporate headquarters, something the Inland Empire lacks.

Then came 2008 and the Great Recession, which hit the Inland Empire as hard as any submarket in California and absolutely leveled its office market.

In the years leading up the the recession, the local office market was improving steadily and attracting some development. Eleven years later, not a single square foot of speculative office space has been built in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. 

Instead, market activity has been restricted to filling empty space, much of which was developed before the recession hit. Since then, the local office market has improved somewhat, experiencing positive net absorption while its vacancy rate fall  below 10 percent, according to CBRE.

But Ontario officials knew they had to shift gears on the Meredith property, now called Meredith International Centre. They could not afford to wait for a rebirth in high-end office space that might take years to happen, if it happened at all.

In 2016, the property became officially open to industrial development when QVC, the online retail giant, opened a warehouse-distribution facility at Fourth Street and Vineyard Avenue that covers approximately one million square feet.

Since then, six more logistics operations have opened at Meredith International, including one operated by Best Buy and another by Arvato-Bertelsmann, a global customer support services company that specializes in information technology, logistics and finance.

Audi and Infiniti opened dealerships in 2017 and 2018, and Porsche has announced that it will build a dealership there.

The city also approved The Paseos at Ontario, a 400-unit multifamily project that will be double that size when it’s finished.

Earlier this month, IKEA announced that it plans to build a 330,000-square-foot store on Inland Empire Boulevard near The Paseos at Ontario. That project will generate much sales tax revenue for the city for years to come, said Brad Gates, Ontario’s business operations director.

“I wasn’t here when the decision was made to go in a different direction, but it’s obvious that decision was based on what the city needed and what the market would support,” Gates said.

It’s good that the city is taking advantage of such a valuable piece of property, and what it’s doing at Meredith International will generate revenue for the city, Devereaux said.

However,  Devereaux’s vision of high-end office on the property probably won’t happen, Ochoa said.

“We think office would work better downtown or around [Toyota Arena],” Ochoa said. “Our plans for the Meredith property are more retail, more industrial, more multifamily. In the future, you’re going to see more of what’s already there.”