Business & Tech

Loma Linda No Place for Big Business?

Despite repeated attempts to bring in more business, many decline to give Loma Linda much of a chance because of demographics.

As Tuesday night’s debate over a McDonald’s restaurant wore on, a council chamber with residents and locals finally got the hear details on a dilemma the city has been quietly laboring with for years.

Budgets are tight. Staff is being cut. And business is not beating a path to the city’s door. No matter how healthy or educated its residents are or how affluent the community, Loma Linda has long battled business-generated demographic models that help guide locations of stores, branches and restaurants, city officials said.

“There have been several comments regarding the fact that we have the opportunity attract other businesses to this mall or other sections of the city and that they would thrive,” Loma Linda City Councilman Ron Daily told the crowd. “I and some of the other council have been on the lookout for retail. We have open land here that we’d like to develop … The five of us, including several others, are constantly on the lookout.”

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For years, Loma Linda’s staff has tried to court several businesses. They have pitched the city by phone, email and even in person, officials said. Some, like Fresh and Easy, have been contacted frequently.

But the problem is demographics and proximity to cities that already have big national stores, said Konrad Bolowich, Director of Information Systems for Loma Linda.

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“Citrus Plaza (in unincorporated Redlands) is a big, well-developed area that has a lot of national retailers and a lot of national exposure,” Bolowich said. “We don’t have an area like that.”

San Bernardino has been able to lure several restaurants to its Hospitality Lane district, which increases the difficulty for Loma Linda.

And there is the fact that much of Loma Linda's vacant area is in the south part of town, butting up to the mountains, Bolowich said.

“They usually look at a five-mile circle,” he said. “If you spin a five-mile or 10-mile circle around Loma Linda, you get lots of vacant mountains and less economically desirable areas that are adjacent to us.”

“It really makes us look like a different animal than what we are,” Bolowich said.

No one is looking at the fact that the city's population swells to three times its size during the day due to the medical centers and Loma Linda VA, officials said.

The challenge was evident to councilman Daily after pitching Loma Linda to Veggie Grill, a healthy food restaurant which has eateries in Orange County.

According to Orange County Register food writer Nancy Luna, when Veggie Grill looked to expand in 2006, investors in the restaurant chose commercial centers with a Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods Markets. One location went into an Irvine center.

"We were looking for an educated, sophisticated consumer willing to try new things. This is it," Investor Kevin Boylan told Luna.

The food is delicious, Daily said Tuesday.

“I thought I had a brilliant idea that everybody would appreciate,” Daily said. “I talked to Konrad (Bolowich). We’ve both had multiple contacts with (Veggie Grill),” he said. “And they say we don’t fit their profile.”

Meantime, the city must live within its budget. A struggling economy meant cuts to staff as the city worked to close an $866,000 budget shortfall. The planning department shrank to one person as development crawled to a near halt.

Everyone seemed to agree they wanted to see specialty grocery stores and more affluent restaurants come into the city. But it will take work, officials said. For now, turning down McDonald’s in the name of saving many from their own eating habits was a mistake, some speakers said Tuesday.

“This is exciting,” said Phil Carlisle, chief executive officer for the Loma Linda Chamber of Commerce. “We are in favor of this project in its entirety.”

Carlisle warned against, “Closing that door to future businesses that want to come into this town because they perceive if I try to come into this town, I’m going to have a problem.”


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