Future uncertain for Mission Inn Museum amid stalled lease negotiations

Riverside city officials released an update last week on the now uncertain future of the Mission Inn Museum, noting roadblocks to a new lease agreement from state regulators and the museum’s landlord.

The museum’s 22-year lease expired at the end of 2022, and state law prohibits the lease’s renewal, according to the California Department of Finance.

“The City has worked cooperatively with the Historic Mission Inn Hotel & Spa and the Mission Inn Foundation for almost two years in an effort to find alternative sites, create a transition plan and generally facilitate a good outcome,” officials said in a statement Oct. 19. “To date, however, these efforts between the Mission Inn and the Mission Inn Foundation have not borne fruit. 

“On Sept. 29, 2023, the Historic Mission Inn Corporation served the Successor Agency for the Redevelopment Agency and the Mission Inn Foundation with a notice to vacate the premises,” the statement continued. “As the primary tenant on the lease, the Successor Agency to the Redevelopment Agency then served the same notice to its sub-tenant, the Mission Inn Foundation.

“The City recognizes the importance of the Mission Inn, the value of the museum and the many, many hours that docents have devoted to providing tours of the Inn and supporting the Foundation. The City remains hopeful a solution still can be reached.”

Riverside officials began the city’s collaborative work with the Historic Mission Inn Hotel & Spa and the Mission Inn Foundation to enable the operation of the Foundation’s museum within the hotel, officials said. Through the Riverside Redevelopment Agency, a separate incorporated entity, city officials facilitated the reopening of the hotel in 1992.

“In 2000 a lease was entered into between the Historic Mission Inn Corporation and the Riverside Redevelopment Agency for space within the Mission Inn,” according to the city’s statement. “That space was then subleased by the Redevelopment Agency to the Mission Inn Foundation at no cost for the Foundation’s museum. The lease was for a term of 22 years, with two options to renew for an additional ten years each.”

In 2013, California law forced the dissolution of the Riverside Redevelopment Agency and all such redevelopment entities statewide. After the dissolution legislation took effect, “a separate Successor Agency … was created to wind down all redevelopment activities,” officials said. “The Riverside City Council was appointed to serve as the Board of Directors for the Successor Agency for the Redevelopment Agency with the mandate to close out all prior actions and dealings of the former Redevelopment Agency.”

When the lease between the Historic Mission Inn Corp. and the museum set to expire on Dec. 31, 2022, the City Council voted unanimously to renew “in an effort to ensure the museum’s future,” officials said.

That renewal, however, required the approval of the state Department of Finance, which denied it.

“Successor agencies shall not renew or extend the term of leases,” Jennifer Whitaker, program budget manager for the Finance Department, wrote in an April 15, 2022, letter to Riverside Community & Economic Development Director David Welch.

A spokeswoman for the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The museum foundation’s Executive Director Jarod Hoogland also did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but via email he said that next week the foundation will “have something that can fully explain the history and current status. I can tell you that the Foundation (Museum) intends to fight the eviction.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Historic Mission Inn Corp. “has made ‘numerous’ new lease offers, which the foundation has rejected, Patrick O’Brien, an attorney for the corporation, told the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

“Karl Hicks, board president of the Mission Inn Foundation, told the Press-Enterprise that the offer was a single, five-year lease with no renewal options and ‘nothing after that.'”