Following the 1956-57 opening of the Riverside Plaza mall, downtown shopping began a slow but steady decline. In response, city leaders quickly began working at remaking the city’s civic center. Discussions took place regarding additional parking, modernized storefronts, and streetscape improvements. In June 1958, Los Angeles architectural firm Welton Beckett & Associates presented a downtown…
Six months after being announced, the Riverside Plaza store of Nordstrom Rack is nearing its April 3rd opening date. The sibling of the high-end retailer will take up residence within a portion of the former Harris/Gottschalks/Forever 21 building, taking up a reported 45,000 sq. ft. on the ground level. The 3-story building underwent an extensive…
Work is well underway remaking 4075 Main Street in downtown Riverside into the new home for Riverside County Public Defender. The 8-story building was Riverside’s first modern, mid-rise commercial office building when it opened in 1965. In April 1962, Greschner Investment Corp. of Santa Ana and Los Angeles-based Citizens National Bank* proposed the office building…
Just over 40 years ago, in April 1973, the first of three modern, mid-rise office buildings opened along Riverside’s downtown pedestrian mall, ushering in a new era of mixed uses and densities along Main Street. Like many American downtowns of the era, downtown Riverside’s retail component continued declining during the 1960s, due in part to…
In April 1928, reports surfaced that retailing giants Sears and Montgomery Ward were both considering stores for Riverside, possibly at Seventh and Lime, and Ninth and Orange streets respectively. However, these sites would not come to fruition as both retailers eventually ended up elsewhere in downtown. Just before the opening of Sears at Fifth and…
Almost exactly forty years after a fire that destroyed the iconic Arlington / Tetley / Riverside hotel, the northwest corner of University and Lime is again occupied following the dedication of Riverside’s new Downtown Fire Station. Built at a cost of $12 million as part of the Riverside Renaissance capital improvement program, the station’s opening…
This year (2013) marks the 125th year for Olivewood Memorial Park cemetery in Riverside. The cemetery is hosting a day of historic walking tours on Sunday, October 20th (2013), which we’re glad to be assisting them with organizing and presenting. For now, enjoy this circa 1925 image looking west along the roadway dividing sections G…
Here’s an aerial view from approximately 1960 over downtown Riverside. The view is looking north from Fourteenth Street, with the intersection of Fourteenth and Market/Magnolia at bottom-left. At top-right is the then relatively new Riverside Freeway (Highway 91), with southbound off-ramp at Seventh Street (now Mission Inn Avenue) and southbound on-ramp at Ninth Street (currently…
For nearly 85 years, national retail giant Sears has operated a “brick & mortar” store at three different locations in Riverside, with almost 50 of those years spent at its current Arlington Avenue location. However, the first two Sears stores were both located downtown, with the original store opening in February 1929 on the northwest…
As expected, clothing retailer Forever 21 closed its Riverside Plaza location this past weekend, leaving the Plaza’s largest building vacant. F21 opened at the Plaza in August 2009 replacing Gottschalks, which closed a month earlier as that chain ceased operations. The building dates back to 1957 when constructed for San Bernardino-based Harris’, which remained in…
