A 166,000 square-foot retail center will soon be delivered to Riverside County, after construction on the project began last month. The shopping center, Boulder Crossing, will feature both commercial and retail spaces with major anchor tenants and outparcel pad opportunities, according to Cushman & Wakefield, which is managing leasing and sales efforts at the site.
“This will be a neighborhood retail center providing the trade area with daily needs anchor tenants, restaurants, retail and service tenants,” Chad Iafrate, managing director with Cushman & Wakefield, said. “…We anticipate pad delivery to the ground lease tenants by Q4 of this year and build to suit retail buildings by summer 2021.”
Located in Winchester, Calif., at the Northwest corner of Winchester Road and Domenigoni Parkway, the shopping center has already been partially leased to Starbucks, McDonald’s and Chevron. According to Iafrate, other negotiations are underway with grocery and home improvement anchors, additional restaurants, medical and automotive users.
However, some of the property still remains available for lease or for sale. Four outparcel lots totaling 10.79 acres are currently available. An approximately 4,000 square-foot outparcel building also will be for sale at the property, with a delivery anticipated by 2022. Additionally, five parcels totaling 5.25 acres are available for ground lease.
The project site is located in the growing Winchester community, with established communities, including Hemet, Murrieta and Menifee, in close proximity. The property is also near Interstate-215, which allows for easy access to and from the retail center.
As a growing community, Iafrate said Winchester is seeing many new residential developments within close proximity to the project site. Residential communities currently under construction in the area include 141 single family units from KB Home, 411 from Pardee Homes, 224 being developed by Lennar, 144 being developed by Calatlantic Homes and more. In total, the population within seven miles of the site is expected to increase from 179,644 to 194,609 by 2025.
“This development is right in the path of tremendous residential growth with over 3,200 new residential units either recently completed, under construction or planned adjacent to the west with over 18,000 new homes coming online in the next few years. This center is located at Winchester Road and Domenigoni Parkway, which is a major intersection that sees close to 60,000 cars per day,” Iafrate said.
With the increase in residential developments in the area, Cushman & Wakefield suggests more retail in the area will be essential to meet post-pandemic shopping demands. In a recent report analyzing national retail trends in the first quarter of 2021, the brokerage firm found the sector was beginning to make a recovery due to the amount of pent-up demand caused by the pandemic. While reporting negative net absorption of 740,000 square feet in the first quarter of the year, Cushman & Wakefield also reported it being the smallest negative absorption recorded since the start of the pandemic.
Looking specifically at the Inland Empire, Cushman & Wakefield suggests the retail industry in general should start to pick up as things return to normal and the state of California continues to open up. In the first quarter of 2021, improvements in the Inland Empire’s retail market were already becoming apparent, according to the report. In the first quarter of 2021, the brokerage firm reported a net absorption rate of 109,654 square feet, while in the first quarter of 2020, net absorption in the sector was down 228,310 square feet. The first quarter of the year also brought new retail developments to the region, with 297,345 square feet, while in the first quarter of 2020, only 186,540 square feet was delivered to the market.
