This story was originally published by The Frontline Observer
Where citrus orchards once thrived in the shadow of the San Bernardino Mountains, roughly one billion square feet of warehouses now sprawl across the vast, sunbaked landscape of the Inland Empire. As that number continues to grow, the West Campus Upper Plateau Project, spearheaded by the Lewis Group of Companies, illustrates the gravity of the issue.
For some, industrial and mixed-use developments represent economic progress. For others, these projects—often anchored by warehouses—are the very mechanisms that perpetuate the region’s harmful status quo.
On Monday, the March Joint Powers Commission will hold a public hearing to consider approving an altered version of the West Campus Upper Plateau Project. The proposal, since rebranded as the March Innovation Hub, features an 818 acre mixed-use complex on the open, chaparral land near Riverside’s Orangecrest and Mission Grove neighborhoods. From that total, 579 acres are reserved for parks and open space. Several endangered species, including the burrowing owl and Stephens’ kangaroo rat, call the area home, alongside decommissioned Cold War-era weapons and munitions bunkers.
The developers behind the modified plan emphasize its technological and profit-making potential. Randall Lewis, owner of the Lewis Group of Companies, wrote in an email on Friday, that the March Innovation Hub will transform unused military land into the “biggest technology campus in the region.”
After some backlash and pressure from residents and local groups, Lewis Group has since revised the project to include more recreational space, and added job and community benefits.
“Revised plans for the Innovation Hub encourage research, technology, and start-up incubators for new businesses, consistent with the March Re-use General Plan,” he said, “and we have also removed the plot plan applications from our proposal, which means no speculative warehouses are being proposed.”
Lewis added that failing “to approve the revised plan risks the loss of these benefits and ensures years of stagnation and loss for this valuable property.”
But, for a cadre of resident-critics, the mixed-use development’s sleek new name and softened language do little to disguise what they see as greenwashing propaganda.
Warehouse by Another Name
Last June, Riverside Neighbors Opposing Warehousing (R-NOW) rallied alongside hundreds of people at the Moreno Valley Civic Center, where the commission voted 6-1 to remove the project from its agenda. Jennifer Larratt-Smith, a co-founder of R-NOW, was among the 70 speakers who spoke that evening. At that point, they considered the decision a victory.
“We fully expected the commission to vote in favor,” Larratt-Smith said last June. “So we’re really glad they acknowledged the community’s concerns and took it off the agenda.”
But Larratt-Smith knew there was always the potential for the project to be revised and reintroduced by Lewis Group. Earlier this year, her fears came to fruition.
After the Lewis Group raised legal complaints about the commission’s June 2024 decision to table the project, the commission voted to put the project back on the agenda.
The March Innovation Hub proposal includes a 35% reduction in emissions, a 42% increase in open space, nearly one million square feet less buildable space than originally proposed, the construction of a new firehouse and a 48 to 60-acre community park along Barton Road. It also includes provisions to build a research and education center.
On April 8, Lewis spent time speaking to members of the public about the project at the March Air Field Museum. Lewis expressed optimism about its potential to diversify the regional job market and draw employers from outside the area.
“We’re excited because it can attract different kinds of jobs, and it could attract jobs from out of the region,” Lewis said. “This would go a long way to keep some of the kids who graduate from nearby colleges.”
As part of the vision, Lewis emphasized an educational center designed to equip workers with skills aligned with emerging technologies, to “future proof” the local economy as anxieties over automation and global trade mount.
He said the project could draw companies focused on research and innovation—firms that would “develop different kinds of products to leverage the intellectual capital of the region.”
Larratt-Smith says R-NOW continues to oppose the project and is criticizing the Lewis Group’s outreach efforts by calling it “propaganda.”
“There's been all kinds of lies, like brochures they send out,” said Larratt-Smith. “They never mention the warehouses, which is the one thing that they will not change, but they never mention it.”
Larratt-Smith shared on Friday that a neighbor told her that the day before a canvasser with the Lewis Group came knocking on doors to persuade residents to sign a petition supporting the March Innovation Hub.
“They always talk about the park and open space and whatever. They totally misrepresent this project to the community in order to get people to support [it]."
Larratt-Smith said R-NOW and other residents aren’t fooled.
“We know that this is a warehouse, even if you change the name,” Larratt-Smith said.
Regional Planning: “You really only get one shot”
The March JPA was created in 1993 to oversee the redevelopment of the March Air Force Base after it was decommissioned. Originally intended to coordinate land use between Riverside County and the cities of Riverside, Moreno Valley, and Perris, it has become a key driver of industrial development.
The March Innovation Hub is likely to be the last project the March JPA approves as an agency, since it is set to dissolve in July.
To Larratt-Smith and critics of Lewis Group’s reimagined but warehouse-driven design, the Hub represents a critical juncture in the debate over public land: how it should be used, and who gets to decide.
“When it comes to land use, you really only get one shot,” Larratt-Smith said, adding that the impact will be felt for decades. “Once they’ve built these giant warehouses, you can’t do anything else with the land, so you’ve already ruined the rare plant life and animal life out here—and for what?”
Larratt-Smith and fellow R-NOW co-founder Michael McCarthy criticize the March Joint Powers Authority (March JPA), whose staff oversees land development around the former March Air Force Base.
McCarthy argues the agency helps facilitate warehouse expansion for developers and operates with minimal oversight at the cost of residents.
“This is literally public land,” McCarthy said. “They are only being given the land to the extent that they are entitled to develop it—and we should have a say: the public should have a say in how public land is developed for public benefit.”
Since the Lewis Group shared plans to develop the Orangecrest and Mission Grove area three years ago, residents have voiced frustration over what they see as a flawed public input process.
McCarthy, who is also the founder and chief scientist at Radical Research, LLC, an environmental consulting firm, said that officials with the March JPA have seldom responded to phone calls or emails. He also claims there’s a conflict of interest within the agency that favors developers like the Lewis Group at the cost of the public’s input.
“This agency was created to be a runaround, to cut red tape,” McCarthy said, “to remove the bureaucracy and safeguards that would protect communities.”
In the last two years, Riverside County’s Grand Jury has found that the agency was minimally transparent, compliant to the letter—and not the spirit—of the law.
Dr. Grace Martin, chief executive officer of the March JPA, told The Frontline Observer last August after the first report that the “[March JPA] addresses health and safety concerns through responsible land use planning and compliance with federal, state, and local regulations within our jurisdiction, and through coordination with neighboring cities and the county.”
Martin did not respond to requests for comment to address the Grand Jury’s latest findings or to discuss the March Innovation Hub.
Power and Politics in Perris, Riverside and Beyond
For groups like R-NOW and those in nearby Perris and Moreno Valley, which are also a part of the March JPA focus area, the lack of civic engagement in land use decisions is emblematic of entrenched political alliances.
For Karla Cervantes, a Mead Valley resident and organizer with The Inland Valley Alliance for Environmental Justice, monied interests, she says—not the public—dictate the city’s future.
The Inland Valley Alliance for Environmental Justice uses campaign finance information to put a spotlight on elected officials in their neighborhood. It’s common to see Cervantes, and her husband, Franco Pacheco, addressing their representatives over what they consider a symbolic, political relationship between developers and sitting politicians.
“There is a pattern between campaign contributions and warehouses being built,” Cervantes said. “If a developer wants a project, all they have to do is donate money. And then, a year to the day, that project will come about.”
Cervantes sees warehouse expansion as a reflection of systemic class divides. She says there are enough warehouse jobs, which, she argues, create a cycle of poverty, locking workers into low-wage, temporary work with no benefits.
“I think it’s just such a case study on classism,” she said. “You can work at a gas station in Perris. You can work at a warehouse in Perris. And that’s it.”
Cervantes describes an economic trap, where warehouses concentrate in areas with lower education rates, ensuring that the only job opportunities available are in logistics and warehouse work.
In an April 14 interview with The Frontline Observer, Riverside County’s First District Supervisor Jose Medina expressed some sympathy for residents impacted by warehouses.
Medina, who was elected in last November’s election, also sits on the March JPA board. He said he values transparency and equity, adding that there are two ways elected officials make decisions.
“One is just to be where your constituents are,” Medina said. “And the other one is to use your own values and to go where you think you should lead.”
When asked about the upcoming vote on the March Innovation Hub, Medina expressed caution. He added that each project’s circumstances need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
“I have not yet listened to everything that the developer is going to present,” he said. “I will keep an open mind, and as it gets presented, I will weigh input from different sides to make the decision that I think is best for this community.”
McCarthy argues that the central drawback hinges on the long-term viability of the development, as the project worsens Riverside’s constrictive warehouse job pipeline.
For McCarthy and R-NOW, the proliferation of warehouses isn’t an abstract policy debate or issue. They believe the approval of the Hub will bring consequences that will affect them for generations.
“We are being surrounded,” McCarthy said. “And if we are surrounded, then our homes are under attack and will potentially be rezoned for more warehouses, because that seems to be the only thing that gets built in this county.”
But the trend isn’t isolated to Riverside.
Bloomington, an unincorporated community in neighboring San Bernardino County, has become a prime example of what critics call “warehouse sprawl.” Developers target low-density residential areas, buying up large lots to convert into industrial space. A similar push is underway in Mead Valley, where over 1,000 acres of residential land could soon be rezoned for industrial use.
“Six of the top ten largest warehouse projects in Southern California are in Riverside County,” McCarthy said. “It’s not a badge of honor—it’s a badge of shame.”
Yet for some, hope remains. Like the Lewis Group, Larratt-Smith says R-NOW has been speaking to neighbors as well. She hopes another strong turnout by neighbors opposing the project could convince the board to deny the project.
“The commission has changed and I think they're a couple votes that are more community friendly,” Larratt-Smith said. “My gut is that they will deny it.”
KVCR’s Anthony Victoria contributed to this story. Victoria is also founder of The Frontline Observer. This reporting has been done in collaboration with the Robert Redford Conservancy at Pitzer College.
