Business View Magazine | October 2019

305 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2019 Downtown is Calling Good Times Await Sign Up for our monthly Events Newsletter at RiversideDowntown.org 951.781.7335 www.RiversideDowntown.org FIND US ON STROLL. DINE. SHOP. EXPLORE. www.RiversideDowntown.org R I VERS IDE , CAL I FORNI A things of that nature. Our Riverside Renaissance project a few years ago was our big infrastructure push. Basically, the idea was to take 30 years of infrastructure needs and do it in a couple of years. It was a very successful program and we’re really happy with the results. Again, in the downtown, it laid the framework for a lot of private investment that we’re seeing right now.” Encouraging residential development in downtown Riverside is high on the list, going forward. “Our Downtown Specific plan, which was enacted in the late 2000s, already allowed for some development,” says Freeman. “It just needed some fine tuning to match where things are moving right now - for example, the Imperial Hardware Lofts, our first big residential development ever in the downtown core, which was 100 units with about 10,000 square feet of commercial on the ground floor. We allowed a variance for them to only park the residential onsite, keeping in mind that people like to walk and bike and ride scooters, so they didn’t have to park their commercial, onsite. We also amended our Downtown Specific pictured Imperial Hardware Lofts