Out & About – 12/29/2010

Main Street
A trolley strolls along Main Street near City Hall on a rainy Wednesday
in downtown Riverside.

What began in late 2000 as www.orange-empire.com — a site primarily intended as a photographic journey around Inland Southern California — eventually morphed into www.raincrosssquare.com, an informal website created in mid-2006 with an emphasis on downtown Riverside and local history for the city of Riverside. The original site (orange-empire.com) was the first attempt at showcasing…
Saturday saw us at two events in Riverside. The first was at Habitat for Humanity’s Riverside ReStore where items salvaged from the historic Fox Theater were made available for purchase. The once in a lifetime event drew dozens to Habitat’s store early Saturday morning for first pick of the lot, with several pieces sold within…
Neighborhood community center opens 2008Orange Terrace Community Center Riverside unveiled the latest project from the city’s “Riverside Renaissance” initiative as the Orange Terrace Community Center opened to the public early Saturday. Located on the grounds of the Orange Terrace Community Park, the $11 million facility includes a gymnasium, banquet hall and multipurpose room. Also included…

Retail growth continues its torrid pace within Inland Southern California as both an existing mall and one currently under construction added to their ever-expanding tenant list. The Galleria at Tyler, located at the 91 Freeway and Tyler Street in Riverside, has begun work on the first of two “lifestyle” components flanking the north and south…

A new era has begun for Inland Southern California as ground was broken this week for the area’s first major-league caliber sports/entertainment arena. Located just west of Ontario Mills near the junction of I-10 and I-15, Citizens Business Bank Arena will rise on one of the last remaining parcels of the former Ontario Motor Speedway….

Can a reborn shopping center inject new life into an older suburban neighborhood? Indeed it can as witnessed with the recently rebuilt Riverside Plaza. Opened as an outdoor shopping plaza in three phases between June 1956 and September 1957 and enclosed during a 1983/84 renovation, Riverside’s first mall-like center has now come full-circle with its…