COVER STORY, SEPTEMBER 2006

CREATING CULTURE WITH SHOPPING
Victoria Gardens welcomes a new 91,000-square-foot cultural center this month.
Randall Shearin

This month marks the debut of the cultural center at Forest City and Lewis Retail Centers’ Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga, California. The introduction of a cultural center into a retail center marks the first time a substantial civic component has anchored a regional retail center. It also marks how Lewis Retail Centers and Forest City worked closely with the city of Rancho Cucamonga to incorporate the idea of civic uses into the mixed-use environment of Victoria Gardens.

Western Real Estate Business recently met with Randall Lewis, executive vice president of The Lewis Group of Companies, based in Upland, California, at Victoria Gardens to see the impact of the cultural center on the project. WREB also spoke with Brian Jones, CEO of Forest City Commercial Development, Western Region, about the project.

The cultural and civic component, which opens officially this month, of the center includes the Lewis Family Playhouse, a children’s theatre, a library and a police substation. The cultural component was a large aspect of Victoria Gardens. It was designed as an integral part of the development of the center, acting as a fifth anchor along with JC Penney, Macy’s, Robinson’s-May and AMC Theatres (Bass Pro Shops will join the center as a sixth anchor in 2007). Victoria Gardens opened for business in 2004 and has become a landmark center in the Inland Empire.

“The city of Rancho Cucamonga has always had a dream to be the cultural catalyst in the Inland Empire and had a vision of a performing arts center in town,” says Kevin McArdle, community services director for the City of Rancho Cucamonga.

The cultural center itself is 91,000 square feet and consists of a 100,000-volume library, the 536-seat Lewis Family Playhouse, and Celebration Hall, an event hall and meeting place that seats about 400 people for assemblies. A police substation exists elsewhere in Victoria Gardens.

“When we were envisioning Victoria Gardens as the town center for Rancho Cucamonga, rather than just a shopping center, we sat down with the city. We said that if Victoria Gardens was truly going to be the center of commerce, we needed public buildings,” says Jones. “In addition to the library and cultural center, we have the police substation. The only thing we don’t have is a fire station.”

While Forest City operates Victoria Gardens, the City of Rancho Cucamonga will operate the Lewis Family Playhouse. There are 180 performances scheduled for the first year of the Lewis Family Playhouse, and the city expects most performances during the first year to be sold out. The performances are geared to families and children during the daytime, with performances like “Charlotte’s Web”, “The Elephant’s Child” and The Peking Acrobats. At other times, comedians and singers targeted to older audiences will grace the stage: Sheena Easton is scheduled to perform this month and the political comedy troupe Capitol Steps will hit the stage in November, while The Manhattan Transfer is scheduled to perform in January 2007. Community theatre will also use the stage for performances of plays like “Our Town,” “Big River” and “The Foreigner”.

“Our studies show that families will come from as far as 2 hours away to see a show here,” says McArdle. “And when they come here, they are going to spend money at the shopping center. We could not ask for a better setting than one of the best retail developments in the state.”

Schools in the Inland Empire will be one big user of the theater. Schools plan to bring 500 students at a time on field trips. The theater will provide them curriculum material so that whatever show they view will tie in to the state curriculum.

To make the playhouse a reality, the Lewis family made a substantial donation that covered development and construction costs. The Lewis family is well known in the Inland Empire – The Lewis Group of Companies has developed more than 56,000 homes, 9,000 apartments and 10.2 million square feet of retail, office and industrial space in its 51-year history, with much of that in California’s Inland Empire. The Lewis Family has been known for its philanthropy since its inception — there are buildings, parks and sports complexes at the University of Southern California, and in the cities of Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario, and Claremont, California — as well as a host of scholarships and program sponsorships throughout many communities in California and Nevada that bear the Lewis name.

“Victoria Gardens is the project of a lifetime for us,” says Randall Lewis. “We wanted to do everything we could to make sure it’s a success. When there was an opportunity to work with the community on the cultural center, we jumped on it. It was a way to say ‘Thank you’ to the community because we were grateful for the chance to work on Victoria Gardens.”

With the Lewis Family Playhouse, the Lewis family has also taken an interest to ensure that low-income students are able to experience the arts in education programs that the center will provide.

The community has been reacting well to the cultural center at Victoria Gardens. Because there are few public venues in the area for plays and troupes, The Lewis Family Playhouse has received a lot of attention. It is expected that the cultural center will draw people from the High Desert, the San Gabriel Valley and parts of San Bernardino and Orange Counties, as well as the Inland Empire.

“The bigger surprise has been how far the circle has extended,” says Lewis. “We’ve heard from people 30 and 40 miles away who are excited that there is a children’s theater coming.”

Since the Inland Empire is growing at a fast rate, Lewis says he knows that regional centers competing with Victoria Gardens will open in years to come. He views the cultural center as insurance that will create a steady stream of traffic.

“It will help keep Victoria Gardens the pre-eminent shopping destination in the Inland Empire for years to come,” says Lewis.

“The cultural center will extend the hours of shopping; it will have a different type of customer that will extend the draw to the center,” adds Jones. “We’re already seeing that with the office space above the town square. It is not enough for someone just to do their shopping at a project.”

Combining the playhouse with the restaurants is a natural combination. Before the opening of the playhouse, a number of the restaurants were beating their expectations. The Cheesecake Factory, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, Lucille’s Smokehouse Bar-B-Que, and Yardhouse are among the restaurants at Victoria Gardens.

“The cultural center will serve as a fifth anchor, just as the restaurants have served as an anchor,” says Jones. “The great thing about Victoria Gardens is that there are so many elements to it and they are all bringing different types of people from a very large trade area.”

Forest City anticipates the cultural center as being a part of a real mixed-use project. It is pleased with the results and the draw that the cultural center will offer.

“We would replicate the cultural and civic elements at Victoria Gardens at other projects if we could,” says Jones. “We had a wonderful working relationship with the city of Rancho Cucamonga and that’s what made it possible.”

©2006 France Publications, Inc. Duplication or reproduction of this article not permitted without authorization from France Publications, Inc. For information on reprints of this article contact Barbara Sherer at (630) 554-6054.