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Business & money
Real estate, manufacturing and logistics, tribal economy, wine country, capital markets — the business of California's Inland corridor.
Citrus Belt Review: The national story says AI is taking warehouse jobs. The corridor's actual filings tell a different one — for now.
Citrus Belt Review: California shrank for the first time in three years. The IE still grew — but only where houses went up, and only in one of its two counties.
Citrus Belt Review: A UCR survey finds just 41% of IE residents thriving, against 53% nationwide. The economy is growing, but the gains aren't reaching wages or the warehouse jobs the corridor was built on.
Citrus Belt Review: The Riverside metro pays physicians within 3% of Los Angeles rates — one of five California metros in Doximity's national top ten.
Real Estate & Development
Citrus Belt Review: California shrank for the first time in three years. The IE still grew — but only where houses went up, and only in one of its two counties.
Citrus Belt Review: Zillow's dual-shopper data puts the Riverside metro at 6.1% — affordable-market behavior paired with a coastal-sized cost gap.
Lodging Econometrics: The IE is the only California market in the national top five for hotel development, with 5,266 rooms in early planning at the end of Q1.
Citrus Belt Review: The UC system is betting its statewide growth on Riverside. Cal State San Bernardino, drawing 88% of its students from the corridor, is closing an $18 million hole.
Manufacturing & Logistics
Citrus Belt Review: The national story says AI is taking warehouse jobs. The corridor's actual filings tell a different one — for now.
Citrus Belt Review: Warehousing employment is down 92,000 nationally from its early-2025 peak, and the IE's own data shows the same trade — logistics shedding, healthcare hiring.
CoStar: Link Logistics sells nearly 1.5 million sf of fully leased Class A big-box at roughly $184 per sf — one of the market's largest recent industrial trades.
Citrus Belt Review: Air freight through ONT is up double digits most months this year — even as the region's warehouses shed thousands of jobs. One slice of IE logistics is booming while the other contracts.
Tribal economy
Morongo Band of Mission Indians: The tribe's outreach program has now moved more than $1.7M to 400-plus groups since 2022.
Morongo Nation: The tribe gave $300,000 to the Cherries of the Pass Foundation to support the May 28-31 festival in Beaumont, continuing a recurring sponsorship of one of the Pass area's signature events.
Inland Empire Business Journal: Multi-year deals with the new Tower Buzzers (Dodgers affiliate) and the Quakes — whose field is now Morongo Field at the Epicenter.
Wine country
Hinman & Carmichael: Glass bottles and cans are exempt under the Bottle Bill, but the shipping boxes and plastic wrap wineries use to move product are covered — and producers must register or file for an exemption by May 31.
Capital markets
Citrus Belt Review: The fourth-largest for-profit hospital system in the country runs from a Guasti Road office park — and the buying spree is financed like a public company.
CoStar: Link Logistics sells nearly 1.5 million sf of fully leased Class A big-box at roughly $184 per sf — one of the market's largest recent industrial trades.
Citrus Belt Review: Apple Maps just opened up to ads, and apartment-marketing trade press is treating it as the next channel. The more telling local story: the IE has quietly flipped from a market where units leased themselves to one where Class A communities compete hard for renters — and a new ad channel is a symptom of that, not the cause.
Redfin: 38.1% of March home sales in the Riverside metro were all cash — fourth-highest among 40 major metros, even as the national share fell to a six-year March low.
People & moves in business
The Raincross Gazette: Permanent now after four months as interim; oversaw a run that pulled in six international firms and 700-plus jobs.
Champion Newspapers: Montclair Chamber executive director; replaces Misty Fram on the shelter nonprofit's board.
City of Menifee: Acting chief since February; with the department since 2019.
From the Long Read
Citrus Belt Review: Washington just softened a few finished-goods tariffs, but the force that actually moves IE metal companies is the 50% tax on raw steel and aluminum — and it splits local firms into winners and losers depending on whether they make metal or buy it.
Citrus Belt Review: At ~$7.17 a gallon, IE diesel runs about $2 above the national average — a direct input cost to the region's dominant industry. The logistics economy that the I-10/I-15/SR-60 corridor was built on now carries a fuel penalty the rest of the country doesn't share.
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Business Archives
Morongo gives $450K to 111 nonprofits
Morongo Band of Mission Indians: The tribe's outreach program has now moved more than $1.7M to 400-plus groups since 2022.
Morongo backs Cherry Festival with $300K
Morongo Nation: The tribe gave $300,000 to the Cherries of the Pass Foundation to support the May 28-31 festival in Beaumont, continuing a recurring sponsorship of one of the Pass area's signature events.
Morongo backs Tower Buzzers, puts its name on Quakes field
Inland Empire Business Journal: Multi-year deals with the new Tower Buzzers (Dodgers affiliate) and the Quakes — whose field is now Morongo Field at the Epicenter.