Orange County’s latest retail development project, the $70 million River Street Marketplace by Almquist, is wrapping up 10 years of planning, construction, delays and extensions.
The first round of tenants at the 60,000- square-foot center, made up of both OC exclusives and local favorites, began opening their doors in mid-October and more than half of River Street is open as of this month.
By the end of December, almost all 30 stores will be open representing nearly 100% occupancy at the San Juan Capistrano outdoor shopping center. There are only a couple more second-floor spots to finalize, according to Managing Partner Dan Almquist.
The opening is occurring at a time when retail outlets are being decimated by online shopping sites like Amazon. Retail leasing prices are around $2.51 per square foot in Orange County, per CBRE. That rate compares to $3.09 per square foot in Los Angeles County, also per CBRE.
To counter online shopping, Almquist said that since the beginning of the project, he’s aimed to build a unique and attractive tenant list made up of a third of local brands, a third regional and another third that were nationally known.
“Traditionally, it’s more of trying to fill space as quickly as possible and it becomes pretty vanilla,” Almquist told the Business Journal. “For us, there’s a lot of curation.”
For example, Almquist wanted to feature stores of “referential uses,” such as flower shop Pick Me Flowers and butcher shop The Market by The Meat Cellar, which is also a full-service restaurant.
“Those were two in particular that I wanted to bring to create a true marketplace,” he said.
“I always tell people when I got involved with this, I really did feel like I was on an island.
No one really believed in San Juan or believed in this kind of vision,” Almquist added.
The developer noted that the first three brokers he approached wouldn’t take on the assignment.
“It really was that idea of ‘hey, San Juan is special, and we want to invest in our community.’”
Starting from Scratch
“Our vision was to create a vibrant gathering place that honors the community’s heritage while introducing unique, high-quality brands to San Juan Capistrano,” Almquist said.
He wanted the tenant portfolio to be a mix of OC newcomers and familiars that the local, immediate community would frequent but also draw in a larger community from outside the region.
“10, 15, 20 years ago, it was about who’s your anchor tenant, and then building the project around them. For us, it was kind of backwards,” he added. “Like starting from scratch.”
The brands opening their first local outposts are the upscale Mexican restaurant La Vaquera by Santa Barbara’s Acme Hospitality Group and Finca, a new concept by local Chef David Pratt with early California-inspired cuisine. Pratt is best known for Brick, an award-winning Italian restaurant in San Clemente that closed earlier this year.
On the retail side, locally based Seager chose River Street to debut its first brick-and-mortar shop last month. The retailer, headquartered in San Clemente, was launched in 2015 by Co-Owners Mattson Smith, Elliott Shaw and Case Anderson, who wanted to create apparel inspired by both the Old West and Southern California surf culture.
The design of the retail center keeps the storefront entrances facing a central courtyard with the collection of stores and restaurants surrounded by a gravel parking lot, versus what Almquist described as a “traditional Albertsons anchored strip center” with a large parking lot to walk or drive across.
“Rather than having people move through the project in their cars, how do you get them to move through on their feet? How do we get someone to park their car then walk and spend time in the project,” Almquist said.
Stores still to come in December include the local debut of Long Beach’s Ubuntu Café.
Other OC Passion Projects
Almquist is planning other projects in Orange County. He recently closed on a $21.3 million purchase of land at the Great Park Neighborhoods overseen by Irvine’s FivePoint Holdings (NYSE: FPH), according to property records.
Almquist will build a retail site, called The Canopy, spanning between 85,000 and 90,000 square feet and using the same formula in San Juan Capistrano.
“We’re trying to create a daily needs neighborhood center but also couple that with more of this experiential, curated retail,” he said. “To have the opportunity to do development in Irvine is like our Super Bowl.”
Retail projects like River Street, both in scale and passion, have been popping up around OC with the largest still on the horizon.
The center follows the 2023 fall opening of Mercado González in Costa Mesa – the almost 70,000-square-foot marketplace concept from Northgate González Market that took the place of a former Albertsons space.
The González family garnered a lot of support from the local community and fellow businesspeople for the new store, earning the family the Business Journal’s nod as Businesspeople of the Year, in the retail sector.
“It was about doubling down on what is authentic Mexican food, and how can we do it better than anyone else,” Co-President Oscar González said in January. “The passion is contagious if you have the right vision.”
“I think the González family put so much of themselves into that project. And I think that’s exactly what you see when you come to River Street,” Almquist said. “This was very personal to us, and we did put a lot of ourselves into it.”
A larger transformation is happening over in Anaheim, backed by Henry and Susan Samueli. The couple has said that the multibillion project, dubbed OCVibe, is their addition to the destination that is OC.
With the first two tenants announced in October, OCVibe currently counts its first pair of parking structures and The Weave office building under construction as it preps for the first opening phase planned for 2026.
“To us, it’s a great investment in this community and hopefully a transformative investment,” Henry Samueli said at a preview event in September.
River Street Marketplace Stores
Most of the 30 shops and restaurants are open except the food hall, which is expected to open soon.
• La Vaquera
• Finca
• Seager
• Free People
• Shop Common Thread
• Tecovas
• Fermentation Farm
• Wildfire Mercantile
• Pick Me Flowers
• The Market by The Meat Cellar
• May Martin
• McConnell’s Ice Cream
• Mendocino Farms
• Toes on the Nose
• Salt Optics
• Studio Pilates
• Ubuntu Café
• Rodeo River Street food hall (which includes NOM, Capas, Parana Empanadas, Shootz Hawaiian, The Sushi Stand, Kebab Craft, Hudson’s Cookies, Bred Hot Chicken, Kozan Teahouse, Pastalia)
• CAPO Leisure House
• Hobie
• Rowan