MURRIETA, CA—The City of Murrieta is focusing on cybersecurity as part of a larger effort to attract additional tech and healthcare companies, its economic development director Bruce Coleman tells GlobeSt.com exclusively. Although Murrieta grew as a bedroom community—it experiencing a 233% population growth from 2000 to 2010 and now has a population of nearly 108,000, making it the largest city in Southwest Riverside County—it is now focused on business growth, says Coleman.
“We have recently updated our general plan to focus on tech businesses' growth, including IT/software, R&D, advanced manufacturing, med device, healthcare, etc.,” Coleman says. “The Council has rezoned large areas along both freeways for office-research-park development. It is a 'big idea,' but with so little land left in the tech corridors of San Diego and Orange County (let alone L.A. County), as well as Temecula, Murrieta is focusing on this type of business growth since we are midway between Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego/Tijuana.”
Coleman adds that the City is also focused on becoming the healthcare center for the region. “With Loma Linda University Medical Center-Murrieta opening the first phase if its teaching hospital in the North Murrieta Tech Corridor and Kaiser Permanente just closing escrow on nearly 40 acres for an 850,000-square-foot master-planned campus in Murrieta, Rady Children's Hospital is moving forward with a new pediatrics-care facility, and HealthSouth bought land in Murrieta for a brain-rehab hospital here.”
In addition, the City has also created an incubator (Murrieta Innovation Center) at its former City Hall in partnership with its CONNECT organization and has a separate private-software-engineers incubator, which opened in Murrieta, says Coleman. “This is all part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem we are working to pursue. The Murrieta Innovation Center has a strong focus on healthcare—for example, Loma Linda University has leased the former Council chambers for $1 per year for a regional healthcare innovation center.” The City has also been working to grow the Murrieta Temecula Software Group and the Murrieta Temecula Hardware Innovators Group here, says Coleman.
The City recently hosted a meeting at the Murrieta Public Library on the ever-changing and –evolving threat of computer hacking and the importance of cybersecurity for businesses. The meeting was held in partnership with the Small Business Administration, Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP and iDiscovery Solutions, which all provided expert speakers for the event. JR-Tech was also on-hand to give a brief presentation. According to Jarom Renfledt, owner of JR-Tech, “Never before has one person been able to rob thousands—or millions—all at once until now.”
Coleman says the cybersecurity event is “really part of a very broad perspective. We recently signed an agreement with a city in the Negev where much of Israel's cybersecurity industry is moving from Tel Aviv (according to a recent Wall Street Journal article), since we believe this is a key growth industry for this area due to our strong software focus here.”
Not only does the City want to make sure its many software companies in Murrieta and the surrounding region are secure from hackers and other cyber threats, “but we also see a great value in attracting cybersecurity companies to Murrieta,” says Coleman. “Cybersecurity firms are expected to experience rapid employment growth.”
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Carrie Rossenfeld
Carrie Rossenfeld is a reporter for the San Diego and Orange County markets on GlobeSt.com and a contributor to Real Estate Forum. She was a trade-magazine and newsletter editor in New York City before moving to Southern California to become a freelance writer and editor for magazines, books and websites. Rossenfeld has written extensively on topics including commercial real estate, running a medical practice, intellectual-property licensing and giftware. She has edited books about profiting from real estate and has ghostwritten a book about starting a home-based business.
