BALDWIN PARK
The Habit Burger Grill, the California-based restaurant company known for its Charburgers grilled over an open flame, signature sandwiches, fresh-cut salads and more has opened a new location in Baldwin Park, California. Located at 13621 Francisquito Ave, the fast-casual restaurant began serving up its 'Habit Hospitality' on February 2nd.
Upon opening, the local restaurant began offering dine-in, takeout and drive-thru ordering. Convenient curbside pick-up and delivery is available via The Habit Mobile App and online atorder.habitburger.com. Contactless delivery is also available through DoorDash, Postmates and Uber Eats. Guests also have additional convenient ordering options including state-of-the-art indoor self-serve kiosks and ordering ahead via phone.
This Habit Burger Grill restaurant's dining room will be open 10:30am-10:00pm, with the drive-thru remaining open until 11:00pm.
The Habit Burger Grill is a burger-centric, fast-casual restaurant concept that specializes in preparing fresh, cooked-to-order chargrilled burgers and handcrafted sandwiches featuring grilled tenderloin steak, grilled chicken and sushi-grade Ahi tuna cooked over an open flame. In addition, it features fresh handcrafted salads and an appealing selection of sides and shakes. The Habit Burger Grill has grown to over 320 restaurants in 14 states throughout Arizona, California, Florida,Idaho, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina,Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia and Washington as well as 11international locations, seven in China and four in Cambodia.
CHINO:
Two new members and are-appointed member were sworn into the Planning Commission at the February 1st Chino City Council meeting.
The council voted to ratify the appointments made by Mayor Eunice Ulloa and Councilman Walt Pocock, who is the council liaison to the Planning Commission
Lissa Fraga, Lawrence Vieira, and Kevin Cisneroz were selected from 13 applicants to serve a four-year term ending Jan. 1, 2026.
Mrs. Fraga, who works as vice president of sales and development at a mortgage company, has lived in thePreserve for 14 years. She has two bachelor’s degrees from California LutheranUniversity in Thousand Oaks, one in international business and one in Spanish.
Mr. Vieira, who worked as a regional engineering manager for the Walt Disney Company for 25 years, has lived in Chino since 2015 and resides in College Park. Mr. Vieira has an associate’s degree in business management.
Mr. Cisneroz, who is corporate operations manager at Inland Empire Escrow in Chino, has lived inChino for 36 years and graduated from Don Lugo High School in 1988. Mr. Cisneroz began serving as a Planning Commissioner in 2019. He is also a member of the Citrus Valley Association of REALTORS®
CHINO HILLS
Two portions of the GatewayVillage shopping center on Grand Avenue at the 71 Freeway in Chino Hills have been sold to separate buyers for a combined value of $19 million, according toHanley Investment Group Real Estate Advisors, a real estate brokerage firm specializing in retail property sales.
The seller was VantageOneReal Estate Investments of Newport Beach that includes partner Tom Robinson who was one of the original shopping center developers.
The 12,984-square-foot portion of the shopping center including Pick Up Stix, Chino Hills Dental, It’sBoba Time, and First Citizens Bank sold for $11.4 million to a private investor based in Burbank.
The 14,771-square-foot portion of the retail building where Sit ‘n Sleep and Dunn-Edwards paint store are located facing the 71 Freeway, was sold for $7.6 million to a private investor in Santa Clarita.
CLAREMONT
The City ofClaremont has prepared a draft environmental impact report (DEIR) addressing the city’s housing element update and associated update of the safety element of the general plan.
Between January 27and March 14, 2022, residents are invited to submit their written comments regarding the DEIR to Community Development Director Brad Johnson. Residents can submit their comments either through the mail or via email.
Comments through the mail should be addressed to the Community Development Department, 207 HarvardAvenue, Claremont, California 91711. Emailed comments can be sent tobjohnson@ci.claremont.ca.us. Please include your name, phone number, email and postal address in your comment.
This Notice ofAvailability (NOA) has been prepared and distributed to provide an opportunity for responsible and trustee agencies and interested parties to submit comments related to the Draft EIR, relative to the attached project summary. Residents should comment on such information as it relates to their statutory responsibilities in connection with the Housing Element Update. .
The city is also the lead agency pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and has prepared an initial study for the housing element update EIR.
This NOA is being circulated pursuant to public resources code section 21153(a) and CEQAGuidelines section15082 and the DEIR is available for review along with the NOP on the city’s website:https://www.ci.claremont.ca.us/living/draft-housing-element,” the city wrote online. A printed copy will be available at city offices upon request.
For more information on the DEIR, visit:https://www.ci.claremont.ca.us/living/draft-housing-element. To get updates on the housing element, send your email to housingelement@ci.claremont.ca.us.
DIAMOND BAR
The Walnut ValleyWater District issued water restrictions in response to the state’s ongoing drought situation.
The WVWD Board ofDirectors declared a level 2 water shortage, which calls for a 20% drop in water use.
The Walnut ValleyWater District has about 100,000 customers in parts of Diamond Bar, Walnut, theCity of Industry, Pomona, West Covina and an unincorporated area of RowlandHeights.
Under the restrictions, residents are limited to watering their lawns only three days per week. There is also no watering between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Home car washes are also banned.
There is no watering during rainfall, or 48 hours after rainfall. There is also no washing of hard surfaces such as sidewalks, driveways and buildings.
Similar water conservation measures have been issued in cities including Glendale, Pasadena and Simi Valley.
Although a recent slew of storms dumped heavy rain and snow that helped pull California out of the most severe drought category, the state still remains in the grips of a drought nonetheless.
In October,California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide drought emergency which calls for residents to voluntarily curb their water use by 15%.
The MetropolitanWater District of Southern California, the region’s water wholesaler, declared a drought emergency in November.
ONTARIO
CenterPoint Properties has acquired a 108,616-square-foot warehouse in Ontario, Calif., from KGP Logistics, continuing its streak of industrial acquisitions in Southern California. The latest deal bringsCenterPoint’s footprint in the region to more than 7.7 million square feet across 65 properties.
The nine-acre property at 2777 E. Cedar St. is near theOntario International Airport and 55 miles east of the ports of Long Beach andLos Angeles.
According to a permit request filed with the City of OntarioDevelopment Advisory Board last year, the former owner planned to build a71,667-square-foot extension to the facility on the 3.5 acres of excess land.CenterPoint has announced it will use the undeveloped portion to create additional parking spaces. The company is also planning extensive renovations to the 1990-built warehouse. The single-story building currently offers 11dock-high loading doors, 145-foot truck courts and 60 parking spaces, Commercial Edge data shows.
The moves comes at a time when demand for logistics facilities in the Inland Empire is peaking. As of December, the market had only0.9 percent of industrial space available—the tightest vacancy rate nationwide by a long stretch. Unsurprisingly, the Inland Empire leads the way for rent increases, with a 6.3 percent change in the asking price year-over-year through December.
POMONA
The City of Pomona,California won its 10-year lawsuit against the U.S. subsidiary of a Chilean fertilizer manufacturer for contaminating the city’s drinking water in a ruling on Sept. 7.
On Jan. 27, 2022,U.S. District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner denied the request for a new trial brought by the defendant, a U.S. subsidiary of Sociedad Química y Minera deChile, also known as SQM North America Inc.
The defendant soldChilean fertilizer used in the area’s citrus orchards, which contained the toxic chemical perchlorate. The jury found fertilizer shipped from the Atacama Desert of Chile in the 1930s and 1940s and mixed into the soil of Pomona’s fertile ground.
After three trials, a federal jury in Los Angeles awarded Pomona $48 million to pay for the damages associated with drinking water contamination.
The state declared perchlorate a contaminant and set a maximum level of 6 parts per billion in2007 and Pomona had to close 14 wells, which pumped the perchlorate-contaminated water from the aquifer, part of the Chino Water Basin.
The judge said the jury's liability finding was supported by the evidence.
SQM may still appeal the ruling. According to SQM, the company should not be held liable for risks unknown to them in the 1930s and 1940s, although they did remove percholate from its fertilizer before selling it after a certain point.
RANCHO CUCAMONGA
A Texas-based steel manufacturer received $313 million for a 95-acre section of industrial land in the Inland Empire.
Commercial Metals Company sold the site of its shuttered operations at 12521 Arrow Route in Rancho Cucamonga to BTC III AcquisitionsLLC, an affiliate of Los Angeles-based Ares Management Corp., based on documents related to the deal.
The sale looks to be the largest industrial deal in theInland Empire–which includes Riverside and San Bernardino counties–in recent memory. It’s significantly bigger than last year’s top industrial deal, which came in October, when Dallas-based Covington Group paid $252 million for seven industrial buildings near Victorville.
CMC did not disclose the buyer, and a representative declined an interview request. A review of public documents by The Real Deal indicated the acreage and identity of the buyer.
CMC characterized the property as “a large parcel of land,”and records show that one distribution warehouse property on the site occupies about 27 acres.
CMC shut down its Rancho Cucamonga operations in December 2020. Ahead of the closure, a company representative blamed the closure on a non friendly business climate, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported.
Less than a year earlier, CMC had announced more than 100 layoffs at the Rancho Cucamonga mill as part of the company’s decision to stop buying outside scrap metal and shutter an operation that melted seized firearms. It was unclear how many additional layoffs resulted from the 2020 mill closure.
CMC, based in Irving, Texas, near Dallas, is a multi-billion dollar company with operations throughout the United States and in Germany,Poland and China. The company continues operations in several other California cities, including in San Bernardino, San Diego and Fontana, according to its website.
SOUTH EL MONTE
The 72-year-oldStreamline Moderne/Googie marquee of the Starlite Drive-In will be preserved and restored as part of the project at 2560 Rosemead Blvd., Urbanize LosAngeles reported.
The historic pink sign that once greeted generations of night-sky movie-goers and daytime swap meet shoppers will be included in the proposed project of 169 single-family houses and 38-multi-family dwellings, according to a new environmental report.
The Starlite Drive-In opened on June 15, 1950, drawing as many as 860 cars to the fan-shaped lot for scarcely more than a buck a load. By day, it became the popular Starlite Swap Meet.
With the march of time, the drive-in screen was taken down in 1997. But the 30-foot sign whose twinkling stars lit up the theater at dusk still stands.
“The Starlite was built during the first great wave of drive-in theaters following the end ofWorld War II,” the city report said.“The drive-in was an iconic experience for the average American family who could enjoy an outdoor film from the comfort of their own automobile. When the Starlite Drive-In first opened it was lauded as one of the largest drive-ins on the west coast with every “modern facility”. Its illuminated sign was praised in a 1951 issue of the Box office magazine as a fine example of an ‘attraction panel’ to “catch the attention of patrons.”
Plans for KB Home’s Starlite Residential Development call for three-story attached and detachedSpanish Colonial Revival and Craftsman-style buildings linked by private roads and pedestrian walkways.
Plans also call for9,000 square feet of recreation space, including a community building and swimming pool.
Construction of the Starlite development in the San Gabriel Valley, east of Los Angeles, is expected to begin this fall and be completed in Spring 2024.
UPLAND
ParkMobile, a parking app, is expanding its services to the City of Upland, California by offering zone and permit parking. Through the app, users can pay for on-demand off-street par ing at close to 300 spaces around Upland.
Beginning in February, MetroLink customers will be able to purchase parking permits for the various MetroLink parking lots near the UplandStation platform. Downtown business owners and residents who live inResidential Parking Districts will also be able to obtain parking permits through ParkMobile in the near future.
California is one of ParkMobile's most popular states with over 2.7 million users. Many Southern California cities are currently available on ParkMobile, including Riverside, San Bernardino, Costa Mesa, Los Angeles, Newport Beach, Oxnard, Ventura, and San Diego.
ParkMobile has over 30 million users across North America, is available for both iPhone and Android devices, and can also be accessed on a mobile web browser. To pay for zone parking using the mobile or web app, a use renters the zone number posted on signs around the parking spot, selects the amount of time needed, and touches the "Start Parking" button to begin the session. The user can also extend the time of the parking session on their mobile device.
For more information on ParkMobile, contact City of UplandSergeant Moe Duran, (909) 946-7624 Ext 3342