How Fresno farming families are developing a growing future for the Clovis area
Want to know what mixed-use development in Clovis’ next big growth area will look like?
To see the future, head to the northwest corner of Willow and Shepherd avenues (within the Fresno city limits, but bear with me). In what used to be a plum orchard and more recently a 20-acre dirt lot now stands a spiffy new multifamily residential and retail project that, at least for this area, represents the first of its kind.
By all indications, The Row at Heritage Grove won’t be the last.
“The core principles that we used to design and create The Row are something that we plan on replicating project after project,” said Vincent Ricchiuti, one of the managing partners.
What is Heritage Grove, you ask? It’s a 4-square mile area bounded by Willow (to the west), Shepherd (south), Sunnyside (east) and Copper (north) avenues contained in Clovis’ 2014 General Plan update that is slated to become the city’s next “urban center” following Loma Vista and Harlan Ranch.
And while The Row technically has a Fresno address (the Fresno-Clovis border runs along the middle of Willow), it is very much a Heritage Grove project for the simple reason that P-R Farms, the company Ricchiuti’s grandfather founded in 1956, owns property at all four corners of the Willow and Shepherd intersection in addition to other parcels within the area that Clovis officials project will someday be home to 30,000 people.
P-R Farms grows almonds and olives and produces olive oil under the Enzo’s Table brand. In 2015 the Ricchiutis partnered with the Parnagian family that owns Fowler Packing (oranges and table grapes) to form Heritage Development Co. in order to design, build and hold all the multifamily, retail and office projects planned for Heritage Grove.
The Row, which combines 255 apartments (some are flats stacked three stories tall, the rest two-story townhomes) and 35,000-square feet of retail, is a promising beginning for these farmers-turned-developers.
Fresno and Clovis have no shortage of corner strip malls bordered by apartments and condos. But I don’t know of any with such ease of accessibility. Instead of a brick wall, the residential and retail sections of The Row are separated by an iron fence with three gates residents can pass through with the same key fob that opens their front door.
“It’s a seamless experience,” Ricchiuti said. “You don’t have to get in your car, drive around and park. You can walk or bike.”
The Row has a different feel than other apartment complexes in that it’s laid out in a grid pattern with tree-lined streets, sidewalks and parallel parking. Besides a clubhouse with its expansive pool and deck, state-of-the art fitness center and other amenities, there are four parks (including a dog park) and easy connectivity to two Class I bike paths. (No other corner in Fresno can claim the latter distinction.)
‘We want it to feel like a real neighborhood’
While the partners toured mixed-use developments throughout California for ideas, they took their design inspiration from closer to home: the Fresno High neighborhood.
“When you go to those college (-named) streets and see trees that have been there for a very long time and provide a beautiful canopy, that’s what we wanted to create here,” Ricchiuti said. “We want it to feel like a real neighborhood.”
Other touches, such as the white stone walls throughout the clubhouse and other buildings, pay tribute to a more distant locale: the Italian coastal city of Bisceglie, hometown to both of Ricchiuti’s paternal grandparents.
Following years spent designing and building The Row, the partners were understandably nervous the COVID-19 pandemic might wreck their May 2020 opening. It turned out to have the opposite effect, at least on the residential side.
Despite being priced at the upper end of the Fresno market (monthly rents range from $1,788-$2,492 for one-bedroom flats to $2,465-$3,257 for three-bedroom townhomes), The Row was 100% leased and occupied in five months, and each of the seven floor plans has a waiting list.
“What we learned was that a lot of people were looking at where they were living and trying to decide, ‘Is where I’m living where I want to be spending all of my time?’ ” Ricchiuti said.
“What we are offering here at The Row is something different from the area … and it’s new. Everybody likes new. So we attracted people.”
Busy intersection straddles Fresno, Clovis
Some were out-of-towners who moved to Fresno from more expensive regions of the state while working from home. (Ricchiuti doesn’t have an exact percentage.) Others moved from down the street. There are singles, families, retirees and folks who lost their homes to the Creek Fire.
Attracting tenants to the commercial side of the property has been a considerably slower process. The Row’s retail spaces are empty, though Ricchiuti said a hair salon signed the first lease and others are currently being negotiated. (The two spaces closest to the corner of Willow and Shepherd are meant for restaurants. He would also like to see a coffee shop and bike shop — all locally owned.)
“The retail has definitely been a challenge ... but I think we’re coming out of that now, and we’re confident demand for services in this area will be high,” Ricchiuti said.
While saying this, the 37-year-old, fourth-generation farmer glances across the intersection to the southeast corner of Willow and Shepherd, a vacant lot except for the building on the corner that houses Enzo’s Table.
Heritage Development’s next project, similar to The Row, will be built there. Site plans are currently being drawn up. In time, all four corners of the busy intersection straddling Fresno and Clovis, where stone fruit and almonds once grew and home to P-R Farms’ cold storage and packing house since 1973, will bear their touches.
“This is our home. We’re not just building something to sell off, turn it,” Ricchiuti said. “We’re building something that our families and the future generations of our families can be proud of for a long time.”
This story was originally published February 21, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
CORRECTION: The original version of this story misspelled the name of the family that owns Fowler Packing. It’s Parnagian.
