Troubled Moreno Valley Mall closed for safety violations

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The Moreno Valley Mall in Riverside County remained closed Wednesday as owners faced fire safety violations that led the city to shut down most of the vast retail center.The sprawling indoor regional mall is a centerpiece of Moreno Valley serving customers from Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

It was built in 1992 on the former site of Riverside International Raceway, once considered one of the finest automotive racing tracks in the country and a regular draw across Southern California for decades before it closed in 1989.On Feb.19, city officials “red-tagged” the mall for the owners’ failure to resolve a multitude of unresolved issues related to its fire protection systems.

The owners said they are “working hard to end this interruption.”Portions of the two-level, 1.1-million-square-foot mall were deemed unsafe by county and state fire inspectors who recommended the city shut them down “until all live-saving measures are addressed,” the city said in a statement.Department stores Macy’s and JCPenney are independently owned buildings at the mall with appropriately maintained fire protection systems that are separate from the mall’s systems, allowing them to stay open, the city said.

The16-screen Harkins Theatres movie cineplex is also open.City Councilwoman Elena Baca-Santa Cruz told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that the mall has “hundreds of violations,” though nine of them are preventing it from reopening.“For example, there’s no backup generator.

If there was a power failure, the whole place will go dark, and that’s a safety violation,” Baca-Santa Cruz said last week.The owners of the mall, IGP Business Group, did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but owner Matt Ilbak said in a recent Instagram post that a new generator has been installed.The company has upgraded the fire sprinkler system and is working on resolving “al...