Norco Auto Mall Pulls Ahead; Corona Struggles to Catch Up

The idea prompted laughter and disbelief when it was first proposed, City Manager Ronald E. Cano said. Let them all laugh was his attitude, and he vowed to work all the harder to make a local auto mall a reality.

This week, there will be a ground breaking for the city’s first new-car dealership. City officials see it as the beginning of a collection of as many as 13 auto dealerships that could boost annual sales-tax revenues by $2 million, or more than a fifth of Norco’s annual budget.

Without that kind of additional revenue, city officials say that they will be hard pressed to continue providing public services in a community that consists almost entirely of homes on large lots, and where residents demand facilities like horse trails to support their “rural life style.”

Police and fire protection, street maintenance, water service, and parks and recreation programs are simply becoming too expensive to support with property taxes alone, Cano said.

“Our only means to deal with these expenses is to compete in the marketplace for sales-tax dollars,” Cano said. “We can’t do it with another hay and feed store, or another beauty parlor.”

The answer, they decided, was the kind of volume sales-tax revenue only a slew of auto dealerships could generate.

“Many people laughed at Norco when we proposed an auto mall,” Cano said. “That has made me more aggressive. . . . My goal is to prove people wrong.”

And he hopes that Tuesday’s ground breaking for Hemborg Ford at the corner of Hamner Avenue and 2nd Street represents the start of something big.

The City Council long ago set economic development as a top priority, but Norco has had to work harder than most cities to attract business, largely because of its image problems.

Reputation as Rural Community

With roughly twice as many horses as people, Norco has had a reputation as a backward, rural community opposed to urbanization. The city has a small population--about 20,000--little industry, and no retail pull beyond its borders, Cano said.

Until last spring, growth was at a virtual standstill for 8 1/2 years, while the city enforced a moratorium on sewer hookups. Construction of Interstate 15, an important north-south connection through Norco that will link the Riverside, Pomona and San Bernardino freeways, was plagued by delays.

But with sewer capacity problems behind it, bulldozers carving the new freeway, and aggressive efforts to lure automobile dealerships from neighboring areas, Norco’s dreams of economic development appear to be on the verge of coming true.

The city, which has established one of the largest redevelopment project areas in California, is using redevelopment funds to buy and clear sites. Land is then sold to dealers at bargain prices.

It also has compiled a slick presentation package, complete with artist’s renderings of the signs, landscaping and architecture that are requirements of the mall’s Spanish California theme.

The city’s presentation and financial incentives persuaded Hemborg Ford to move to Norco’s auto mall from its present, run-down facilities in a declining barrio in central Corona. “It was (below) market value, and it’s a good spot,” owner Bob Hemborg said of the new site.

A Connecticut-based company, which has put a deposit on three sites in the Norco Auto Mall, is seeking dealerships from other manufacturers.

“I’m pretty close to wrapping it up, putting something together with some manufacturers,” said Joseph M. Caldrello, president of Caldrello Motor Group.

Courting Dealers

City officials also are actively courting other dealers, including two they hope will move up the road from neighboring Corona.

That city--fearing an exodus of dealers and a drop in the $1-million annual sales-tax revenue from them--has scrambled to catch up with Norco’s auto mall development efforts.

But Corona’s efforts to build its own auto center have hit some substantial roadblocks. Corona originally considered three sites for its mall. One site was opposed by dealers, another would have required extensive city involvement in the condemnation and demolition of existing businesses, and the third was not available for purchase.

Corona officials settled on the last site, however, and have worked out an agreement with the Santa Fe Pacific Realty Corp. to buy its land at the end of Serfas Club Drive, north of the Riverside (91) Freeway.

The agreement is now awaiting final approval from Santa Fe Pacific’s parent company, city officials said.

Five auto dealers have given deposits to the City of Corona to hold potential sites in the auto center, Deputy City Manager William Garrett said.

But in the meantime, a nearby property owner has filed a lawsuit against the city, seeking to block Corona’s involvement in the auto center as a redevelopment project.

That property owner, identified only as B. E. Dailey, “does not think that auto malls are a proper use of the redevelopment agency or the redevelopment laws,” said Dailey’s attorney, W. G. Wells of Santa Monica.

Dailey’s property is just outside Corona’s city limits, noted Meredith Jury, an attorney for the city. Corona sought unsuccessfully last month to have the suit thrown out of court on those grounds.

Now, Jury said, “the (Corona’s) position is to expedite the trial and have the matter resolved as quickly as possible.