How This City Attracted Costco, Trader Joe's, and Tourism Without Selling Out
Welcome to Local Living Tri City, your go to podcast for exploring the vibrant communities of Temecula, Murrieta, and Menifee. Join me, Liz Jones, as we dive into real estate insights and local business stories, bringing you closer to the heart of our Tri City area. Let's get started with today's episode.
Hey everyone, it's Liz Jones with Local Living Podcast. Thank you for joining us I have a very special guest with me This is Patrick Ellis and Patrick and I have known each other maybe I'm going back maybe eight years now, but I really kind of jumped in to feet Into getting to know the Murrieta Wildemar Chamber in the last two or three years How many years are you with the Chamber? 12 and a half years. Holy moly. right now you lead the organization, tell me about your process coming through, how you got involved with the chamber, what the chamber is.
And we'll start there. Okay. Sounds good. So As far as the chamber goes, chamber work, I fell into it like most of the people in the chamber industry did.
I started, on the board of directors for a chamber up in Ventura County, up in Moorpark, was the incoming chair elect, and we had lost our staff and didn't know what to do, so We had to figure it out. Right. Right. And so at the time I was in insurance, I had an insurance agency, I had staff in place and said, okay, look, I can at least come in, keep the doors open, the lights on and kind of, you know, make sure that we function, as long as, you know, give me the liberty to kind of work on my stuff the board was fine with that as I did more of that, I started to learn about the chamber itself I found out it was something I really loved and had a passion for eventually I made the shift became the employee and the president CEO of the Moorpark chamber, sold off my insurance practice and dedicated myself to that.
And then I did that up there for about five years or so. A friend of mine in the chamber industry, and he had found out about this position in Marietta, and it opening up, and the board at the time had contacted him about some help with recruitment and stuff, and he kept telling me, he's like, you gotta look at this. This is a really, really good opportunity for you. And actually at first it said, yeah, no, I'm good.
but he stayed on me. so I looked into it and the opportunities were amazing. It's just 12 years ago. coming to work for, a city, that had an amazing economic development department was extremely exciting to me. that's when I decided, to put my, hat in the ring and, I ended up getting the position it was probably the best move I ever made for both myself career wise, but also for my family as well.
Oh, that's great. It's a great family. bedroom kind of community. one of the things I know to be true, I am a resident of Murrieta. we embrace new businesses coming into this community. Easy shopping, better roads, more availability so they don't have to drive to another nearby town.
that isn't by accident. There's actually a lot of work that goes into that. I've heard you guys talk about ICSE, and I've sat at Coffees with the City and listened to Scott and everybody else get excited about different businesses coming to our community. Give me a couple of stories about such businesses that weren't here, were found, what they meant to the city, what they helped, the residents long term. I know a couple so I won't jog you, but I'm sure you do too.
Yeah, yeah. No, there's quite a few. The idea of startups in this community started long before I got here. the city has always had a very pro business approach. and that's been very encouraging for us in everything that we do.
and so starting from there, then everything kind of cascades from there. And that, that's a big piece of the entire puzzle that is what, We make up our business community. Yeah. ICSC is the biggest retail developer show in the world. it happens every year in Vegas.
myself and whether it was Bruce before Scott, and then with Scott, obviously we, you know, we spent a lot of time out. at the beginning, it was just telling people who we were, Who Murrieta is. just getting people to understand who we are, where we're at, what we do, and, you know, and then sharing demographics and things that make a difference to those types of people.
And, and that's what it started off at. And then, It grows and then you create relationships and you build relationships. Costco and Trader Joe's are two of the stories that kind of come out of that. Costco, I remember my first year going to ICSE with the city of Marietta was in 2012. And remember meeting with the gentleman who represented Costco at the time.
And it was a courtesy meeting, Basically just, yeah, you, you, you bugged me enough that we can get a meeting. but We kept that up and every year we'd reach out and try and get another meeting. And the, the, you know, squeaky wheel gets the oil kind of a thing, but you have to do it in the right way. eventually they saw it. they needed something to help fill a void that they had within the market, but also kind of, they were overcrowded on some of their other stores and needed to kind of, strategically do that. And so, and because we'd had the relationship, we'd built that.
We were one of the first ones they came to to have that discussion. Trader Joe's, they had a philosophy of starting up new stores in, in urban settings. that rural was not part of their, focal point. But no matter what, we kept trying to get a meeting with them and we met with them every single year. and then, you know, They had some shifts change at the top. They sold off part of it and then their, their, philosophy changed and went back to, we want to go back to more of the rural settings, more of the suburban areas.
And boom, we became one of their first opportunities right after they made that shift. So again, it's relationship based. continuously, meeting with people so they know who we are and that we're ready when they are. So if I could summarize that your team, the folks that work for you partner with a city, you guys head out to Vegas, you hit up a lot of large retailers of the areas that we need. shopping is big one.
We say retail, obviously. we could use a Costco so everybody doesn't have to go down to Temecula. We could use another, Trader Joe's because that parking lot stinks over there. And then, do you find them land or partner with developers to find areas? What do you do? It's a great question because Murrieta specifically does not have a lot of land and has not traditionally. other cities, especially in California, have had that opportunity to, Do some partnering with some of these developers.
So we had to kind of overcome that to an extent, within, you know, our kind of strategies with some of these meetings, the way we looked at it and the way we always approached it was, like the match. We're only the tool that puts the right people together hopefully there's a perfect marriage that happens at that point. Wow And so we had one of those fun things Recently the myriad hot springs resort was opened and that was one such baby Talk about you probably have more history about Murrieta Hot Springs than I do Tell me a little about where it was what it means to the community today and how hard that was to get that To happen here.
that was a phenomenal win for the city of Murrieta Murrieta Hot Springs Resort this prime place Desert Hot Springs Resort, uh, right here in our valley, but basically closed to the public for 30 years, was in the hands of, Calvary Bible College. they utilized it. I mean, they, they were phenomenal partners and they used it for, But it never was accessible to the public at all. And so that was a big, you know, unfortunate aspect of that property for our community. when that organization decided to sell it, they, communicated with the city myself and Scott worked closely to, put together, the information that was needed to make sure it got into the right hands, right? So we put together, you know, we got a copy of the economic development, impact report for tourism in our valley. we put together a, a deck basically, talking about Murrieta.
the tourism potential, and, and what an impact of a property like this could have for our area. And then just got it out into the right hands, worked with the broker listed on the property, got it into his hands. We sent it out to a lot of different people. Thankfully it somehow got into the hands of David Jornet and the, Olympus group. they toured it.
the day David toured Scott and I met him for lunch. we spent about two hours at No No's, talking about Murrieta the region, the potential is, what we are doing, how, what the focus of the city is, the chamber, all the different aspects. at the end of that meeting, I'm not sure if we impressed him or scared him, but it worked out how long was that romance of getting started? once it got listed, David was in, within a few weeks, the whole thing was done within about six months That's a fast turnaround. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the Olympus group, they're the ones that own the Pagosa Springs Resort in Colorado, which is, you know, one of the top, hot springs resorts They knew what they were doing. They knew the model.
Yeah. And so they saw the potential there and they just, they jumped at it. Especially the way we are in the city. I mean, we have so many people.
What is our, What is our number in Murrieta right now, if we looked at those numbers? We're about 120, 000 right now in Murrieta. Temecula right now, isn't it? It's right about the same. It's about, yeah, I mean, it depends on the day. I think, you know, it's a, both are right around that 119, residents.
And we still have room to grow in Murrieta. We still have land. And Temecula's pretty much landlocked now, right? For the most part, yeah. They've got a few projects still to go, but for the most part, it's infill.
Murrieta still has quite a bit, and we've got the Murrieta Hills Project taking place just on the other side of the hill from Greer Ranch across from Loma Linda and such Which will bring in I think it's like 800 new homes new homes in that area and you call it Murrieta Hills Murrieta Hills, I believe is what it was. It was the name at the time I think it's still that but yeah, there's still a lot of potential We see a lot of multifamily going on here recently. which, I'm very excited about. I know, a lot of people in the community are a little, challenged my wife being one of them.
but that's workforce housing. those are opportunities needed for those who work here to live here. we have a lot of people that commute into Murrieta and Temecula for work, and they're commuting in from, Hemet, San Jacinto, Bonzell or Fallbrook and this gives them an opportunity.
We also have a community that now is, you know, we've grown over the last 30 years. Well, now we've got the next generation that's looking to, you know, move out of the house and, Some of them, a lot of them don't want to leave and they want to stay in the area, this gives them an opportunity To move out of mom's house. That's a great thing. tell me, how does the Chamber support, local restaurants, we work with our restaurants closely every year we do restaurant month. this year we did it in the month of March and just showcase our restaurants, try and create some interactive opportunities for people to try different restaurants that they engage, encourage them with, giveaways at the end of the month, we also help to try and feature them at certain events that we do state of the city.
every year when we do the state of the city. We do VIP reception, or we try and engage a lot of our local restaurants, in Murrieta and Wildomar. We have the Wildomar State of the City coming up.
Same thing, trying to engage a lot of the restaurants there locally, kind of give you that flavor of the city. opportunity, for a lot of different people that may not come into Murrieta very often. That's awesome. If you would have to say, what is one type of business the city of Murrieta, or Wildomar for that matter, needs more of, what would that be? believe it or not, it's healthcare. I'm not surprised.
Not surprised. Yeah, the ironic thing is, is, you know, we've got this great seven story tower going up in Woldemar at Inland Valley and, you know, Rancho's had some, upgrades that they've been working on and looking to continue to do some more. Temecula Valley has been built up.
you know, we have Loma Linda and Kaiser has built a couple of their, OBs. but realistically, we're still a very underserved community when it comes to healthcare. so that's, and that's one because it kind of mirrored us at the heart of that healthcare and what we're doing at the Innovation Center, it's still very much, at the focal point of a lot of the industry that we're focused on. that's true. how about attracting jobs to this area? What do we do to help attract jobs because clearly we got a huge commute to San Diego and a huge commute that's even going to Corona and Orange County.
what are we doing to help that out? Yeah, that's been a focal point for Scott and I at the city for a long time. how do we reverse the commute? bringing the Myriad Hot Springs Resort online helps a lot because, people who work in hospitality world who now they don't have to. That resource is right here.
the work that we're doing at the Myriad Innovation Center to grow kind of that, the life sciences and health tech, ecosystem there's a lot of people who work in that. industry and their community to San Diego or Orange County every day. we want to give them the opportunity to start their own business grow jobs here. we're doing that not just with residents but also looking at, bringing people from outside to grow their business here with the idea that they're going to anchor it here and grow those, those industries more here.
those are good life sustaining wages that they're providing. . Now we have a few big, corporations locally. they may not reside in Murrieta, but between Pachanga Abbott, we have, MSJC. Are they, are they the community college? The community college now there, they're still one of the largest employers in, in the Valley. Yeah. Still kidding. Oh yeah.
Wow. Yeah, between their Temecula campus and Menifee campus. Yeah, definitely. And then they obviously the original San Jacinto campus. yeah, it's still one of the largest employers. and, and an entity that's trying to work with all of our local businesses too.
Wow. They're trying to provide resources, training. whatever it might look like that a local business needs to help upskill their workforce or, or, or their entry level, that's, that's what they also work on on a regular basis. Oh, that's cool.
each year we do something with the chamber that celebrates a lot of the, the the small businesses, middle sized businesses, individuals, tell me a little bit about, that event each year and what that means to the community and how they, how you pull it all together. Yeah. we call it our annual award celebration.
it's an opportunity to celebrate a lot of different people. businesses, entities within our valley, celebrate them for their accomplishments, recognize them for what they've done. you know, there's so many, every year we get so many different applications and, and there's some amazing stories within them. You know, I mean, we got this week, we have a ribbon cutting for rusticos celebrating their 20th anniversary. for a restaurant to make it 20 years especially here is so special.
we need to celebrate those things. we do a citizen of the year for both Marietta and Wildomar, we do volunteer of the year for both of the cities. we do, small, medium and large business restaurant of the year, nonprofit service organization of the year. and then we have other couple other special ones that we do for like chairman's choice it's just an opportunity to celebrate our, our business community. our valley as a whole. and it usually is a special night.
That's fun. I think last year wasn't it over at the Muriel Hot Springs? Yes. At their conference center. So, and I think that's great. It's going to be this year again.
Yes. That's awesome. We're excited. Yeah. So, how big is your team over in the chamber? so we have, there's six of us on the team now. so myself, then we have, Heather, who's our VP of operations.
Tara is our events and programs, coordinator. Nadine, who makes us all look good, who's our marketing and, communications expert. Chris, who's our, membership and, business development, person. And then Timari, who helps us with all of our, membership retention and specialty, services there. You're doing a lot.
I've seen a lot. I've gone to a couple of those breakfasts and you've given some outlines of what you're doing for the community and, Just marketing the cities is a pretty big accomplishment, and I don't think a lot of people recognize that. when it comes to marketing, you're preparing information about the city.
Why should someone from another place come and live here? Tell me about that marketing and what you track, how you track it a lot of that, we work with the cities, both with Kimberly and Wildemar and Scott and Murrieta. we do a lot of programs together. it's that public private partnership, which I think lends success because each brings that different idea and mindset, which I think is very important, and, cause you need to have them both there, but we, we have access to different types of data as far as like who's commuted in, who's commuted out, all those things, and we use them all the time for recruitment purposes, So, we're always constantly working on. how do we make sure that the businesses that are here continue to grow? that's our first focus because, as in business, it's easier to, retain a client than get a new one.
It works the same way for a city. the more we keep them here, the better off we are. but then, then the next part has, needs to be that kind of recruitment aspect. That's awesome. Yeah.
finally, I, I wanted to kind of understand a little bit. How often would you say that your, your people will meet with the cities, whether that's Kimberly or Scott to talk about focus points, direction, maybe things that could help the businesses, how the advocacy in general, how often would you guys get together for that? we have a standing meeting once a month where. It's just an opportunity to get together and make sure that we talk about what's going on, what's in front of us, what we're trying to focus in on, who we're trying to attract, those types of things. But realistically, we see each other more, probably three, four, five times a week, we do a ton of advocacy work, representing business to government, whether it be locally in our city council meetings, whether it be at the state level, yesterday we had our, Southwest California Legislative Council meeting and, saw Kimberly Davidson there I will see Scott tomorrow because we're helping the city with a, commercial broker, event.
we see each other all the time. but having that scheduled monthly meeting, to go over certain things, certain projects, upcoming projects, future thoughts and, and goals, those, those are very important for us. Wonderful. Final thought before we leave.
Why should someone move to Marietta and Wild DeMar area? that's easy. it's an amazing area. when we moved here, 12 and a half years ago, I don't remember the population at the time, but about 88,000 Yeah. at the time, it felt like a small town. We're at 120, 000. It still feels like a small town.
That is intentional on the part of us at the chamber. It's intentional on the part of the city. but it's not just us.
Wildemar is the same. Temecula is the same, right? There, there's sense of community here that There's very few places else in California have then you just start to stack on it You've got amazing school districts, all of our school districts are amazing Marietta being you know, my home when I have to say is I love it we have amazing districts doing innovative work public safety is second to none, right? You can just look at any of the statistics out there and it's fantastic. It's just, it really is a great place. And now we've got a lot of different assets and resources and entertainment pieces that pretty much check the box for so many different people, that, that make life, very happy daily wonderful.
great answer. I live here because I love it. I settled here in 2001 and I'm asked all the time if I could live anywhere in the valley, where would I go? I'm where I want to be. Patrick Ellis, thank you for being here on local living today. Thank you for listening.
if you have questions, you can reach out. We'll post how to get in touch with the chamber below. thank you until next time. Thank you for listening to Local Living Tri City. Stay tuned for more insights and stories from Temecula, Murrieta, Menifee, and surrounding areas.
Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with a friend that is passionate about the Tri City area as you are. Goodbye for now, and we'll see you next episode.
2024-11-17 03:21
