The Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California is now under construction in downtown Riverside. It’s meant to be a place of action and conversation around civil rights in the Inland Empire.
The $43 million, five-story building will house the institute, a large conference room, an office for the Fair Housing Council of Riverside County, and 72 units of affordable housing.
Dr. Ron Loveridge is the former mayor of Riverside, a current UCR professor and president of the Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California.
He says though the institute will showcase civil rights history from this region, it’s more than a museum.
“It's not a standalone effort, it's going to collaborate and coordinate activities with groups across the region and, you know, it's both to record, to reform, and particularly to inspire. And it will be a place to gather, it's self-consciously being designed for people coming together and talking about where we are, and where we can be, and where we should be,” Loveridge says.
Loveridge says part of that mission will be the affordable housing component of the building.
"The second, third, fourth and fifth floors are 72 units of affordable housing with 25 of those units for veterans. First floor will have the Civil Rights Institute and the Fair Housing Council of Riverside County, we will occupy the first floor and we should be open by late spring in terms of housing and we're in the process of getting to recruit a full-time director for the Institute.”
Located in downtown Riverside, the 92,000-square-foot building will open in spring 2022.
You can learn more at inlandcivilrights.org.
