Perris lands a 145,000-square-foot Target after a decade — and it isn't a warehouse

Target will open at 1688 N. Perris Boulevard on July 26, anchoring the final phase of Plaza de Perris, a grocery-anchored center off Interstate 215 that will total roughly 363,000 square feet. The store runs about 145,000 square feet and is expected to employ more than 150 workers.

The site is a decade in the making. Wood Investments bought the center in 2017, added 118,000 square feet of retail across 2019 and 2020, and closed a $66.5 million recapitalization in mid-2024 — a $55.5 million construction loan from a life-insurance lender plus $11 million in joint-venture equity — specifically to bring Target in as a co-anchor on a long-term lease. The center was 99 percent leased when that financing closed, with Food4Less, Ross, Ulta, Burlington, Planet Fitness, and Five Below already in place. The store replaces the Regency theater that closed in 2024.

What makes this an operator signal rather than a ribbon-cutting is the kind of box it is. Perris is a logistics town, and for the past two years its development fight has been over warehouses — the city has moved to throttle new industrial, not court it. Its marquee large-format approval, the one it financed around and celebrated, is consumer retail anchoring a grocery center. A city braking its defining industry is filling that economic space with sales-tax base instead.

The trade-area read is straightforward. Perris residents have been driving to Menifee and Moreno Valley for a full-line discounter; the gap was real enough that the city worked for years to close it. A 145,000-square-foot anchor at 99 percent center occupancy is a bet that the captured spending supports it — and a marker for what a warehouse-constrained IE city builds when it builds big.