It's no surprise that Ephrain Corona didn't have time to talk when I called. The immigrant owner of a five-store Mexican roasted chicken chain based in Oxnard was too busy growing his business. What Corona undoubtedly realizes is that the time is ripe to cash in on California's fastest growing consumer segment: foreign immigrants. Joining this growing group of entrepreneurs are a few developers and a handful of planning departments – mainly redevelopment agencies – all of whom may have found the best hope yet to juice inner city and small town revitalization efforts. On drawing boards in many California cities are a host of so-called "mercado" developments – shopping centers built on sites of abandoned or under-performing commercial properties in immigrant neighborhoods. Currently, plans for Latino-oriented shopping centers are being studied in Escondido, Oceanside, San Jose, and Long Beach, to name a few. And plenty of businesses want to fill these centers, including the likes of Corona's El Pollo Norteño. Considering the explosive growth of this immigrant-based economy, it's no wonder more organized developers with larger-scaled projects are entering the arena. According to Monique Nordholm, of Santa Barbara-based Hispanic Business magazine, Hispanic buying-power jumped 30% from 1992 to 1997, rising from $204 billion to $266 billion annually. Although the Latino community's growing middle-class accounted for much of this growth, immigrants represent an important piece. Latino centers have only recently become part of a formal shopping center inventory. Asian-oriented centers have thrived in Orange County and Los Angeles's near-east suburbs for years. Bridgecreek Development is one of the leaders. The 23-year-old, Westminster-based Bridgecreek is best known for developing the 300-store Asian Garden Mall in the heart of Orange County's Little Saigon. John Duong, one of Bridgecreek's vice presidents, says that the firm is retooling to expand into other underserved market segments — namely, the Latino market. Bridgecreek's first attempt at crossover made a big splash. On September 16, Duong hosted none other than Gov. Gray Davis, who attended the grand opening of the new San Pablo International Marketplace in the East Bay. Formerly the El Portal Shopping Center that once housed a Safeway, the 52-acre, 500,000-square-foot center in the East Bay is more than a symbol of the alternative immigrant economy's importance. It is perhaps the first attempt to service a spectrum of immigrant communities, and a test case of local government reorienting redevelopment efforts by tapping into the immigrant economy. The San Pablo Redevelopment Agency pitched $2.5 million into the project, which is a cornerstone for the aging community's downtown revitalization efforts. Anchoring the San Pablo center is the newest Asian-oriented Ranch 99 supermarket. Bridgecreek partnered in with Ranch 99 years ago in Orange County to open the first of the supermarket chain's 30 stores. At the other end of the San Pablo mall is the 16-screen Maya Cinema. Moctesuma Esparanza, an East Los Angeles cable television provider and movie producer joined in this cross-cultural retailing venture. Esparanza hopes to launch five Maya cineplexes per year, primarily in communities with large Latino populations. Meanwhile, Bridgecreek, anticipating the success of its recent expansion to the Bay Area from its Orange County base, has plans to go nationwide. That international mercados have arrived in California's inner city neighborhoods won't surprise urbanites, who are accustomed to multiculturalism. But it still may be difficult for most Californians to fathom the demographic change in California's farmbelt. From Brawley to Biggs, the shift from a traditional small-town American society to a Latino and/or Asian one has fundamentally changed the culture and economy. For instance, in Delano, a Kern County agricultural town that was ground zero for the United Farm Workers 30 years ago, the population is about 60% Latino, and 20% Filipino. And just as the flavor and language of the neighborhoods have changed, so has the business activity on Main Street. "We have no chain stores like Rexall or Woolworth," says Keri Cobb, city planner in Wasco. "Instead, we have many Hispanic-owned businesses, many of the 99-cent type. A new store opened recently that sells everything from wedding dresses to chickens." A market area ripe for international shopping centers? Maybe. But hungry as farmbelt towns are for new retail development, few have been approached by developers like John Duong. Nor are many of the towns actively pursuing such developers. Cobb, for example, says that most of Wasco's economic development efforts are geared towards traditional code enforcement and sign control issues. "We mainly work on educating local merchants on the importance of signage and color to retain an attractive downtown setting." Cultural preferences aside, it should not be long before immigrant-oriented developers like Bridgecreek begin knocking on doors of farming towns. Grocery chains like Los Angeles-based Tres Sierras or Bakersfield's three-store Mercado Latino are likely anchors for international centers in smaller agricultural towns. If they partner with a godfather like Bridgecreek, we just may see the latest in inner-city retail development coming home to the farm. And if Duong is lucky, he might get Ephrain Corona to slow down long enough to come to the phone. Stephen Svete, AICP, is a principal in the Ventura-based consulting firm of Rincon Consultants, Inc. Hispanic-owned businesses: U.S. total 1980: 263,720 2000: 2,017,803 2020: 3,341,801