"As a result of a settlement agreement I negotiated with Michelle Rubin, the (original) developer, and members of the Mission Grove Neighborhood Alliance (MGNA), the project has been improved substantially." That is Catherine Barrett-Fischer, speaking to the Press-Enterprise in September 2026. She added that Brian Kerr and Lewis Allen of MGNA joined her in the negotiations.
Heavy equipment showed up at the former Kmart, 375 Alessandro Blvd., on Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, and demolition was still underway the next day. The building coming down was approved as 347 apartments. What goes up in its place is a plan for 180 townhouses, and the gap between those two numbers came from three neighbors at a settlement table. The City Council did not produce it.
Years of an Empty Box at 375 Alessandro
The sources don't agree on when the store closed. The Press-Enterprise says the Mission Grove Kmart closed in 2018 and that Kmart owned the property until 2021. The city's 2024 staff report says Kmart stopped business operations in October 2020. It also says the 104,321-square-foot building, built in 1991, stayed largely vacant after that, with only intermittent temporary leases. Under either date, it was the last of Riverside's three Kmarts to close. The Iowa Avenue and Arlington Avenue stores closed in 2017, and the Sears on Arlington Avenue followed in 2019.
The parcel covers 9.92 acres inside the Mission Grove Shopping Center. That makes it one of the largest single redevelopment sites in this part of Riverside. Anything built on it was always going to change how the center looks from Alessandro Boulevard.
The Version the Council Approved
The first plan came from Regional Properties Inc. It called for five four-story apartment buildings with a pool, a clubhouse and a dog park. The Planning Commission held its hearing on July 18, 2024. The item reached the City Council on Dec. 3, 2024, as file 24-3438 under Planning Case PR-2022-001359. The public record on the city's Legistar page lists the project as the Anton Mission Grove Apartments.
The Raincross Gazette reported that the Council voted 6–1 to approve it after nearly five hours of debate. Residents filled the chambers to raise concerns about traffic, density and neighborhood character, and business groups and housing advocates spoke in support. Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes cast the only no vote. She cited safety concerns tied to the site's proximity to March Air Reserve Base.
The approved unit mix leaned heavily toward smaller apartments: 24 studios, 133 one-bedrooms, 180 two-bedrooms and 10 three-bedrooms, with 513 parking spaces.
What the Settlement Changed
The Council vote did not settle the question. In January 2025, the Mission Grove Neighborhood Alliance sued the City of Riverside in Riverside County Superior Court, seeking changes to the project. The city, the developer and the alliance reached a settlement in June 2025. It cut the allowed density from 35 units per acre to an average of 25, lowered the height limit from 57 feet to no more than 45 feet, and capped every building at three stories. The agreement also set unit-mix rules: more than half the units have to be one-, two- or three-bedroom homes, and the project needs at least as many three-bedroom units as studios.
By the time demolition started, the project had a new developer and a new building type. BCT Development, a joint venture between Bain Capital Real Estate and Cherry Tree Development, now plans 180 townhouses in two- and three-story buildings.
| 2024 Council-approved plan | 2026 BCT townhouse plan | |
|---|---|---|
| Housing type | Apartments | Townhouses with attached garages |
| Units | 347 | 180 |
| Buildings | 5 | 25 |
| Height | Four stories | Two and three stories, 45-foot cap under the settlement |
| Parking spaces | 513 | 401 |
| Developer | Regional Properties Inc. | BCT Development |
The Press-Enterprise reported that the alliance is much happier with the new plan.
The Townhouse Plan Lands Below the Settlement's Own Ceiling
The settlement allows an average of 25 units per acre. On 9.92 acres, that would permit roughly 248 homes. The BCT plan calls for 180, about 18 per acre, which is well under the cap the neighbors negotiated. The original approval worked out to almost exactly 35 per acre, the old maximum.
Parking shifts more than the unit count does. The apartment plan had about 1.5 spaces per unit. The townhouse plan has 401 spaces total, about 2.2 per home, and the homes come with attached garages. The total space count dropped by 112 while the housing count fell by 167, so each household gets more parking.
The massing changes too. Five four-story buildings become 25 smaller ones topping out at three stories. That spreads the same acreage across more structures at a lower height, closer to the scale of the surrounding center than the original plan was.
What the Public Record Has Not Caught Up On
Neighbors following this project through official channels will notice that the paper trail lags the construction fence. The city record available online is the 2024 apartment approval, file 24-3438. A separate 2025 or 2026 city filing for the townhouse redesign did not turn up in the public documents reviewed for this post. The townhouse details reported so far come from BCT's Karen Alves, vice president of development, who described the plan to the Press-Enterprise on Sept. 8, 2026.
The Mission Grove Neighborhood Alliance's project page still describes an apartment project and links to the apartment-era environmental documents. The 2024 staff report placed the apartment plan's main vehicle access on Mission Grove Parkway, put a resident-only entrance on Mission Village Drive, and ran an internal drive on the west side connecting to the rest of the center. That layout belongs to the apartment design. No published townhouse-plan document confirms it carries over, and none of the sources reviewed describe construction routing or temporary access changes along Alessandro Boulevard.
The Rest of the Center Keeps Running
The demolition takes up one parcel in a center the property's own site describes as a 70-plus-acre open-air shopping center, with grocery, dining, services, fitness and a movie theater. The anchor stays put. The Stater Bros. store locator lists the Mission Grove location at 315 E. Alessandro Blvd.
The center's tenant directory lists a long run of places to eat:
- Antoniou's N&W Pizza
- Cactus Cantina
- IHOP
- Locals Public House
- Ohana Sushi
- Pho Anh Hot Pot & Crawfish
- Poke Lounge
- Romano's Chicago Pizzeria
- Starbucks, McDonald's and Taco Bell
The same directory lists Galaxy Theatres, EOS Fitness, Club Pilates, AFC Urgent Care, Bank of America, and the Goodwill Bookstore & Donation Center. The directory carries no update date, so check with a business directly before making a special trip.
A Fall Calendar Inside the Same Center
Romano's Chicago Pizzeria at 285 Alessandro Blvd. hosts The Concert Lounge, and its current Eventbrite calendar runs through Thanksgiving. Here are the listed dates at The Concert Lounge:
- Saturday, Oct. 10: Duran Duran and INXS tributes by Arena and INXS'D
- Friday, Oct. 16, 9 p.m.: No Doubt and The Offspring tributes, from $20.23
- Saturday, Oct. 24, 9 p.m.: the 6th annual "Horrorfest," with tributes to The Misfits and Bad Brains, from $14.85
- Friday, Oct. 30, 9 p.m.: a Halloween costume party with The Curse, a Cure tribute, from $20.23
- Friday, Nov. 13: Guttermouth
- Saturday, Nov. 21: a Billy Joel tribute
- Wednesday, Nov. 25: the fourth annual Thanksgiving Eve show with Hoist the Colors
Horrorfest is now in its sixth year and the Thanksgiving Eve show in its fourth. Those repeat events have been running for years while the Kmart building sat empty.
The Timeline From Here
The developer expects the first occupants to move in by December 2027 and the whole project to be finished in fall 2028. The Press-Enterprise also reported a 28-month construction period once demolition wraps up. That is hard to square with a fall 2028 finish when demolition only started in late August 2026, so treat both dates as the developer's estimates, not firm commitments. Either way, the schedule points to two years or more of active construction at 375 Alessandro, with the rest of the center open the whole time.
If you own a home near Mission Grove Shopping Center and want to know how 180 new townhouses next door might show up in your home's value, Adam Schwarz can walk you through recent Mission Grove sales and what they suggest about your street. Start with a Get Home Value request and we will take it from there.
