Economic development officials in Rancho Cucamonga are readying a promotional pitch aimed at getting Orange County businesses to consider an address in “the 909.”
Be on the lookout for a postcard from the Inland Empire city offering details on moving to what’s billed as one of America’s fastest growing cities.
“Orange County has a lot of business and growth and development,” said Linda Daniels, director of redevelopment for Rancho Cucamonga. “But there’s one hindrance. It is running out of land.”
To hear Daniels put it, Rancho Cucamonga isn’t out so much to poach businesses but to keep jobs in the region.
“With leases expiring, we know some will want to move out of state due to the high cost of doing business there,” she said. “We want to keep jobs in Southern California. If a company needs to relocate or expand, we want to make sure they know about us.”
|
|
The postcards are set to be mailed out any day now to roughly 2,500 OC businesses. The campaign is dubbed “Stand Out,” Daniels said.
The theme focuses on businesses that want to stand out with a sought-after office address in Rancho Cucamonga, where “employees can live” by owning an affordable home and not spend hours driving on the region’s congested freeways.
Rancho Cucamonga, whose funny sounding name was played up in “The Jack Benny Program” radio show, thrives on warehouses and proximity to Ontario International Airport.
Big employers include Sears Holdings Corp., PepsiCo Inc.’s Frito-Lay and Mission Foods Corp.
The city is scouting prospects for relocation by working with real estate sources who track when leases expire in OC in the next year to 18 months, said Mike Nelson, senior redevelopment analyst with Rancho Cucamonga.
“We’re looking for high-employment and high-income generators,” he said.
The postcards, which also will be sent to Los Angeles businesses, are set to list 10 reasons to choose Rancho Cucamonga. The pitches will be sent every four to six weeks through the end of the year, Nelson said.
The city points to some coastal businesses that have opted to expand in Rancho Cucamonga, including Santa Ana-based title insurer First American Corp., which has a title center there; mortgage lender Ameriquest Mortgage Co., part of ACC Capital Holdings Corp., which has a customer service center; and Los Angeles-based auto insurer Mercury General Corp.
“We are not going to poach companies from Orange County,” Daniels said. “But these companies have nowhere to expand.”
Many OC businesses have shifted operations to the Inland Empire because of a lack of space here.
Irvine-based American Sporting Goods Corp., a maker of basketball and other sports shoes, is preparing to move its distribution to the Inland Empire.
It just signed a five-year lease in Fontana for a new warehouse.
The 320,000-square-foot building is set to replace two others the company has in Orange County.
American Sporting Goods said it would have kept distribution here but couldn’t find enough space to do so.
Another company, Placentia-based lawn, garden and household products seller Galleria Inc., is expanding to a 715,000-square-foot warehouse in Rialto.
Rancho Cucamonga has competition in going after OC businesses. Out-of-state recruiters have targeted local companies for years.
The Inland Northwest Economic Alliance regularly knocks on doors here. Since the late 1980s, the group said it has enticed more than 70 businesses to move from Southern California to the Coeur d’Alene region of Idaho and eastern Washington’s Spokane.
Nevada Development Author-ity regularly advertises locally to get businesses to move to the Las Vegas area, touting no personal income tax and lower workers’ compensation costs.
Some are willing to see businesses go east. Irvine Mayor Beth Krom recently said it might make more sense to spend money pushing economic development in the Inland Empire than building a tunnel linking inland workers with jobs in Irvine and elsewhere in OC.
Chronic congestion on the Riverside (91) Freeway might better be relieved with more jobs inland than building more roads to OC, Krom said.
