Leading up to the ICSC Western Division Conference Sept 19-21 in San Diego, we are talking to attendees of the show, what they expect to gain from the experience and what they have going on in their respective disciplines. Today we highlight the Town of Apple Valley (booth 538) in San Bernardino County. We spoke with Orlando Acevedo, the town's economic development manager, and he filled us in on his locale's retail real estate happenings.

"Apple Valley has been attending ICSC Western Region conference for 15 years and exhibiting for 10 years. The leads we generated and the relationships we built have generated more than 3.5 million square feet of retail development since 2005, attracting leading development companies including Lewis Retail and Mal Riley and Associates (Mal was a former ICSC board member). As we do every year, we have scheduled appointments with targeted development companies and tenants to broadly introduce Apple Valley; and, more specifically, to share broker contact information for active sites and help to facilitate transmittal of applicable demographic data, maps, reports, etc.

This year, we have several hot properties, including a 40,000-square-foot former Ralphs’ grocery store in the geographic and civic center of town. Secondly, the Fountains at Quail Ridge is a planned mixed-use center comprising 346,500 square feet and will serve the region’s best demographic area. It is located at a major commercial intersection, along the Yucca Loma Bridge Corridor which is in the pre-development stages. Finally, a prime 4,300-square-foot restaurant on a 47,000-square-foot site is leasable at the most successful non-freeway intersection in the region, Bear Valley and Apple Valley Roads, across from Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s and Walgreens.