Community Market, Center Sprouting Up Across From City Hall

It will be a gift to the city, believes the project manager for a retail and commercial center under construction at the corner of Kalmia Street and Jefferson Avenue.

Olivewood, under development by Murrieta-based will house six buildings, including an 8,900-square-foot organic market built within the frame of a former equine center on the busy corner.

Farmstead Market is slated to open June 1, according to Rick Neugebauer, project manager.

"We think we are bringing something special here to Murrieta," Neugebauer said during an interview with Patch.

"The Olivewood project is more than just a project. I think the city has defined it as a gateway to Historic Downtown and really civic downtown for the city of Murrieta."

The project is directly across the street from Murrieta City Hall. Roadwork is underway to widen the road near the project to and should be complete by April, Neugebauer said.

"The circulation in and out of our project is phenomenal.

"We look at Murrieta City Hall as our shadow anchor."

Neugebauer said with the help of store designer, San Francisco-based Sutti Associates, the market will house sections filled with organic local produce, a cheese bar, olive bar, salad and soup bar, fresh bakery, pastries, beer, wine racks and the list goes on.

Outside the market facing Kalmia will be a covered patio area with seating, along with a separate entrance to a coffee and juice bar for those early risers, he said.

There will be garden beds in the front and back of the store. Plots behind the store will be donated to local elementary schools to cultivate, he said.

Neugebauer sits on the board of directors for Temecula Valley Slow Food, and said this is a way to introduce that movement to Murrieta.

"It is really about creating community," he said.

There will be a roll-up door on the south-facing side of the store so customers can see the gardens, he said, and wine- and beer-tasting areas. Behind that the fence will be 4-foot high apple trees.

On the Jefferson-facing side there will be a grape arbor.

"There will be themes of tying into the community and our history here of farming," he said.

Looking back on the project's beginnings, Neugebauer said he and Real Estate and Finance Director Craig Schleuniger have been working toward this for four years.

before being granted it under the city's new alcoholic beverage code. There was an issue because the project was too close to Town Square Park, but the near parks and schools so long as establishments follow stricter guidelines.

"The alcohol license ended up in our favor," he said.

On top of that, Neugebauer said it was hard to come by bank financing. Instead, they took an unconventional tip from city of Murrieta Economic Development Director Bruce Coleman and ran with it.

They ended up with a pool of foreign investors who each pitched in $500,000 through the federal EB-5 program. In exchange for creating 10 jobs by their investment, the investors—70 percent of whom he said are from China—get a path to citizenship.

Through the EB-5 program they were able to come up with $12 million after 18 months of entertaining prospective investors, he said.

"They are our equity partners. The banks aren't lending, so if we wouldn't have had those equity partners we wouldn't have built the project."

Now it will be about giving a return to those investors, he said. There is already a martial arts studio that has signed a lease for the retail center, and there are three other letters of intent.

A 5,500-square-foot restaurant is also part of the center, as is a drive-through. There is a two-story class A office building as well.

"Obviously when you have a development project you want to find tenants."

But Neugebauer is confident the end result will be a success, despite the fact there is a retail center a block away on Juniper Street and Jefferson Avenue that sits mostly empty.

"It is about visibility and it is about location. Our project looks better, it is a beautiful project, it is visible," he said.

Once the market opens in June, Neugebauer expects the office building to be complete by October and the others to fall in line shortly thereafter.