CORONA - Folks started lining up for the 10 a.m. opening of The Promenade Shops at Dos Lagos a little before 5 a.m. Friday.
Caroline Neal, who lives 15 minutes down the 15 Freeway in Lake Elsinore, was at the head of the line.
"I got up early because I wanted to be first," she said. "I love to go shopping."
By the time the dignitaries said their piece and got out the big ceremonial scissors for the ribbon cutting that marked the official opening, at least 400 to 500 other people were in line behind Neal.
"We've needed something like this around here," Neal said. "These are good stores, and I've been going into Riverside in the past to go to stores like these."
The Promenade Shops at Dos Lagos certainly isn't the first shopping center in the area. The new "lifestyle center" is only about a mile south of another center that includes Target, Kohl's and Best Buy.
It is, however, the only one that includes retailers such as Z Gallerie, American Eagle Outfitters, Banana Republic and other upscale stores.
The center is Phase I of what will ultimately be a 543-acre master-planned community that will have single-family and executive houses, live-work town homes and luxury senior condominiums, an 18-hole championship golf course, a hotel and an outdoor amphitheater.
The project includes 135 acres of open space and habitat - a link to the nearby 13,000-acre Lake Mathews Estelle Wildlife Preserve.
Corona Mayor Karen Spiegel said she remembered her first meeting 10 years ago with developer Ali Sahabi, the president of SE Corp.
"He brought me out here, and all we could see was piles of dirt," Spiegel said. "He started talking to me about a golf course and this incredible lifestyle center. This man definitely had a vision."
Sahabi said he never expected it to take so long.
"Nothing good comes easy," he said. "When we planned this 10 years ago, mixed-use master-planned communities were not common, so there was definitely an educational process we had to go through."
In fact, Sahabi said, Dos Lagos will be the first such community in western Riverside County.
"We had a goal when we set out," he said. "We wanted to set a standard for quality of life and thoughtful planning."
That was why when it came time for the retail portion of the development, Sahabi brought Memphis-based Poag & McEwen, the largest developer of lifestyle centers in the country, into the project.
"When we built our first lifestyle center in Memphis in 1985, we had no idea it would become the dominant retail development in the U.S.," said Dan Poag, chief executive officer of Poag & McEwen. "Our core purpose with this center - with all our centers - was to create a unique and exciting environment where life meets style."
The complete picture won't be developed until sometime next year. A number of shops aren't yet open, and most of the restaurants aren't scheduled to be serving until 2007.
Even the movie theater, a 15-screen Krikorian Premiere Theatres project, won't open until mid-December.
But what was there Friday had the crowd buzzing. Some of the stories opened early to allow shoppers waiting for the ribbon-cutting to get an early look at merchandise, and Z Gallerie was one of the most popular.
Those interested in the offbeat home furnishings store previously had to travel to coastal Orange County or to Pasadena, and other stores such as the yet-to-open Anthropologie are no closer to Corona than Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga.
"This is our latest version of our corporate vision," Poag said. "We try to do something that is exactly perfect for each community, always raising the bar and setting the standard."
Spiegel spoke for many local shoppers when she praised the development.
"Now we can spend our money in our town," she said. "We don't have to get on the freeway and go elsewhere to shop."
Michael Rappaport is business editor of the Daily Bulletin. He can be reached at (909) 483-9395 or at m_rappaport@dailybulletin.com
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