Rancho Cucamonga, CA

Staking Its Claim as the Inland Empire’s Economic Engine

From High-Speed Tail to Billion-Dollar Development Projects, This 175,000 Resident City is Racing Ahead to Become America’s Next Boom Town.

Rancho Cucamonga, a 175,000-resident city in San Bernardino County, California, has become a magnet for Fortune 500 companies and advanced manufacturers, from Coca-Cola’s first new Southern California bottling facility in decades to biopharmaceutical firm Amphastar Pharmaceuticals. What separates this Inland Empire community from countless other municipalities competing for investment isn’t just location, it’s an unusual focus on long-term planning that actually gets executed.

“Every city has a vision, every city has a plan, but our passion for our vision is unlike many others,” says Matt Marquez, the city’s Economic Development Director. “We’ve always been a city that’s had a plan and a city that’s done things differently than others.” The current iteration, known as PlanRC, signifies a fundamental shift from traditional suburban development patterns toward dense, walkable urban environments.

The strategy rests on five core principles: designing for people first, providing connectivity and accessibility, creating destinations, establishing Rancho Cucamonga as the cultural and economic hub of the Inland Empire, and addressing environmental justice. These aren’t mere talking points.

Inland Empire’s Rapid Expansion

The numbers tell a remarkable story about where Americans are choosing to live and work. While Los Angeles and Orange counties lost 175,913 residents in 2021, the Inland Empire added 47,601 people, making it the fifth-largest population gain among the nation’s 50 biggest metro areas. By 2048, demographers project the region will house more than 5 million people, growing twice as fast as the rest of Southern California.

This isn’t just suburban sprawl finding new territory. The Inland Empire covers 27,000 square miles across Riverside and San Bernardino counties, an area roughly the size of South Carolina. Riverside County alone added 13,798 residents in 2023, the largest numerical gain among all counties with populations exceeding one million. The region’s appeal lies in housing costs that run about half the price of coastal counties, while still offering access to Southern California’s economic opportunities.

Marquez places Rancho Cucamonga squarely within this regional growth story. “The Inland Empire as a region is massive, not only based on population, but on square miles,” he says. “When you learn about the Inland Empire being expected to grow faster or twice as fast as the rest of Southern California over the next 25 years, it lends even more to the importance of getting the infrastructure right.”

Migration patterns align with economic shifts. Remote work has reduced the penalty of longer commutes, while rising coastal housing costs have pushed families eastward. Paul Granillo, president of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, sees the challenge ahead: making the region attractive for the 5 million-plus residents it will soon house, complete with major league sports teams and amenities that match its world-famous music festivals.

Brightline West and Connected Infrastructure

High-speed rail has struggled to gain traction in America, but one project is bucking the trend.

Brightline West officially broke ground in Las Vegas in April 2024 with $3 billion in federal funding, making it the nation’s first true high-speed passenger rail system. The 218-mile route will connect Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga in just over two hours, running at speeds up to 200 mph through the median of Interstate 15.

“Brightline West is a huge opportunity,” Marquez says. “Cucamonga Station will be the first of its kind in the United States serving the first of its kind high-speed rail service in the country.” The economic projections are staggering: if only 6 million people use the system annually, a conservative estimate, roughly 500,000 Las Vegas visitors would utilize Rancho Cucamonga as their Southern California gateway.

Carrie Schindler, Executive Director at the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority, sees the broader transportation ecosystem taking shape. “The Metrolink San Bernardino line is one of the highest performing lines in the Metrolink system,” she explains. “Cucamonga Station has been one of the highest boarding stations on one of the highest performing lines. So, it is a sweet spot to have Brightline West come into and provide that connection to the broader Metrolink system.”

The ONT Connector, which recently received state and federal environmental approval, will provide direct access from Cucamonga Station to Ontario International Airport, one of the nation’s fastest-growing airports. “Providing this direct connection out of the hub and to the airport is going to help mitigate the potential congestion associated with both of those growth elements,” Schindler notes.

Building Roads and Utilities

Infrastructure investments separate successful cities from those that merely react to growth. Rancho Cucamonga has spent years anticipating the demands of a larger population, building everything from water systems to electrical capacity before the need becomes critical.

Jason Welday, the city’s Engineering Services Director, describes the comprehensive planning that began during the general plan process. “We spent a lot of time back in 2020, 2021 thinking hard about not only where the houses would go, where the parks would be, but also what our streets would look like and what our utilities would look like so that we wouldn’t just add people and not have the infrastructure needed to support that growth.”

The Haven and Foothill multi-way boulevards are the most visible transformation. These projects will convert traditional suburban arterials into urban environments supporting transit, bicycles, pedestrians, and vehicles. “We have been able to get grant money to do the design for these projects, which is a massive undertaking,” Welday says. The goal is to create places people want to visit rather than simply drive through.

Water infrastructure receives equal attention through partnerships with Cucamonga Valley Water District and Inland Empire Utility Agency. The latter focuses on groundwater replenishment to reduce reliance on imported water. Meanwhile, the city is expanding its automated traffic management system to handle increased congestion and developing a second electrical substation for its municipal utility. “It’ll allow us additional capacity to be able to serve development as it comes in,” Welday explains. The West Foothill Boulevard Improvement project already does this, transforming an old state highway into a modern, bicycle-friendly corridor with cycle tracks and new paving.

Housing and Development Surge

The housing boom transforming California has found fertile ground in Rancho Cucamonga, where developers are racing to meet demand from families priced out of coastal markets. Since adopting PlanRC in 2021, the city has approved a surge of residential projects that dwarf previous development cycles.

“Right now, we’re looking at roughly 4,000 units at some place in the development process, which is huge for us,” Marquez explains. “Since we adopted our general plan, we’ve really seen an uptick in the number of units that we’ve entitled. They haven’t necessarily all been built yet, but we’ve entitled quite a bit.” The pipeline consists mostly of multifamily developments, responding to regional demand for affordable housing options.

Current market conditions have slowed construction despite strong entitlement activity. “High construction costs, lending rates, cost of materials, some developers concerned with softening rents, has led to some folks pausing but not going away,” Marquez says. “We anticipate the construction activity to ramp up, but the entitlement activity is still higher than what it was prior to our recent adoption of the general plan.”

Downtown transformation runs parallel to residential growth. The Haven and Foothill corridor project aims to convert what Welday calls “a traditional suburban arterial” into something entirely different. “The intent is to transform it from the place that you drive through to get to somewhere else, to the place you want to come to,” he says. “You can go to your home, and you can walk or bike over to the restaurant to eat or to pick up your groceries at the store down the street.” Along these lines, JRC Real Estate Investments is developing 248 apartments with up to 30,000 square feet of commercial space in the new mixed-use district.

Tourism and Hospitality on the Rise

California’s tourism industry has rebounded strongly from pandemic lows, but few regions are positioned to capture growth like the Inland Empire. Rancho Cucamonga sits at the intersection of major transportation investments that will fundamentally alter visitor patterns across Southern California. The city’s hotel market already outperforms regional competitors, setting the stage for significant expansion.

Hotel performance metrics tell the story of rising demand. “We continue to do well, our hotels continue to do well in comparison to other cities in the Inland Empire and the region as a whole,” Marquez says. “There’s certainly a market, and we’ll continue to be one for additional hotels in the future.” The newest addition, Sanctity Hotel, features the city’s first rooftop bar and has exceeded expectations since opening.

Brightline West will drive much of the future growth. The high-speed passenger rail connection to Las Vegas could deliver roughly 500,000 visitors annually who use Rancho Cucamonga as their Southern California base. “That ridership lends for the opportunity for a couple new hotels in the city and probably some in other areas in close proximity,” Marquez explains. The system will also tap into the 5 million international visitors who fly into Las Vegas each year and may prefer rail travel to driving.

Sanctity Hotel’s Durango Cocina & Rooftop restaurant and rooftop bar meets untapped demand. “The chef is there at the restaurant, and he talks about how busy they are, and there’s never a dull moment because there’s so much activity going on,” Marquez says. Success isn’t limited to weekends as the venue maintains strong traffic throughout the week, proving the market can support additional hospitality investments.

The Next 18 Months

Brightline West dominates near-term priorities as construction ramps up towards its opening. “Brightline West, always of major importance,” Marquez affirms. “Additionally, another area we are focusing on is known as the Epicenter, and that’s the area around our minor league baseball stadium.” The master plan for this district aims to create “more fun per acre and more value per acre in and around the Epicenter.”

Welday identifies the ONT Connector and automated traffic management system expansion as priorities alongside the second electrical substation project. “It’ll allow us additional capacity to be able to serve development as it comes in,” he explains. Meanwhile, Schindler sees broader regional potential emerging from smart transportation choices.

“What I’m most excited about, looking forward to the next 18 months, besides all the construction activity, is how do those smart and strategic transportation choices translate into smart and intelligent growth and land development choices?” Schindler asks. The region is moving beyond suburban sprawl toward dense, mixed-use development that reduces car dependency.

The transformation of Rancho Cucamonga is significant. As coastal California becomes increasingly unaffordable, inland communities with strong planning and infrastructure investments are capturing growth that once flowed to traditional metropolitan centers. The next two years will test whether ambitious plans can deliver the economic vitality and quality of life that residents and businesses expect.

AT A GLANCE

Who: Rancho Cucamonga

What: A rapidly growing Inland Empire city leveraging strategic planning, major infrastructure investments, and the nation’s first true high-speed passenger rail system to transform from a suburban community into a regional economic hub

Where: San Bernardino County, California

Website: www.cityofrc.us