A project to build health care “city” on what used to be March Air Force Base has shown few outward signs of life since then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — who left office 15 years ago — attended its groundbreaking.
Whatever pulse MarchLife had grew fainter Thursday, July 2, when a public agency terminated an agreement with the project’s developer, March1 LLC.
That move comes after the developer failed to meet a July 1 deadline to close escrow on a $22 million property purchase tied to the project, Grace Martin, chief executive officer of the March Joint Powers Authority, said via email.
The March Joint Powers Commission, the panel of elected officials overseeing the authority, “is committed to bringing this important medical project to fruition, and they will be focused over the next few months on identifying an experienced partner who can move the project forward without further delay,” Martin said.
In a statement delivered via text, March1 says: “We are shocked and dismayed that (the authority) is not honoring their contractual obligations to March1.”
“In addition to not following the requirements of our contract, it now appears that (the authority) is walking away from its commitment to regional healthcare,” the statement adds.
“At a time that healthcare is such a critical need for our region, this action is not only a violation of our contract but also slows down the delivery of new critical healthcare resources and all the high paying construction and healthcare jobs that will come with it.”
March1 “will pursue every legal remedy available to us, and we will continue our focus on providing this badly needed healthcare campus to the region,” the statement concludes.
Martin replied that March1’s statement “ignores the central issue: after more than 15 years of controlling (authority)-owned property, the promised healthcare projects — including a state-of-the-art hospital and holistic medical campus — were never delivered.”
“During that time, the site remained undeveloped, infrastructure continued to deteriorate, and public safety concerns persisted despite repeated commitments to move the project forward,” she said.
“For more than fifteen years, (the authority) has patiently and consistently supported efforts to develop a new healthcare campus because we recognize the region’s critical need for expanded healthcare services,” Martin added.
“Throughout that time, the authority provided numerous opportunities and extensions to allow March1 LLC to fulfill the commitments it made over many years, but they were unable to deliver on those commitments.”
In a June 30 letter to the authority, March1 Co-Manager Dan Niemann wrote the developer “is willing to accept the extension periods proposed by the Authority” with new escrow closing dates of Sept. 30 and Oct. 1.
The need for an extension stemmed from the project’s lenders wanting to know what changes, if any, the county required to the project’s road and street grid, Niemann wrote. The county gave written confirmation about the grid on June 15, he added.
“We now have what we need to include in the underwriting package for financing the purchase” of project land, Niemann wrote, adding the developer sent a $40,000 check for an extension fee and March1 “intend(s) to work diligently to close on the financing transactions …”
In a written response to Niemann, Martin wrote the authority, formed to redevelop ex-military land when the base downsized to March Air Reserve Base in the 1990s, “categorically rejects” the developer’s assertion about the road grid “as inconsistent with” the terms of the most recent amendment to the pact between March1 and the authority.
The authority’s decision adds more uncertainty to a project that’s long been in limbo. The promise of more hospital beds is especially tantalizing in the Inland Empire, which historically lacks the health care resources of other parts of California.
In 2010, the authority and March Healthcare Development struck a deal to turn a 236-acre site between Cactus Avenue, Heacock Street and Riverside Drive into a health care campus anchored by a medical center. Plans at the time called for a $3.7 billion project supporting as many as 7,200 jobs.
“We’re celebrating something no one has ever done in the world,” Schwarzenegger said at the groundbreaking ceremony. “We’re building the first health and wellness city.”
From right, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger joins Gresham Savage and Don Ecker of March HealthCare in applause during a July 2010 dedication ceremony for the March LifeCare medical campus. (File photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Sixteen years later, the hospital remains unbuilt while ex-air force land near it has become a business park, Metrolink station, parks, trails and housing.
Commission officials are worried that “vacant buildings and aging infrastructure” on the project site “continue to hinder redevelopment and pose public safety risks, including recurring gas leaks from a century-old natural gas system serving the area,” according to Martin.
Over the years, authority officials have said the developer missed a number of construction deadlines requiring extensions to the agreement. Last year, Niemann blamed the COVID-19 pandemic and an eight-year struggle to bring water to the project site for the delays.
Optimism for the project rebounded in 2025, when the commission approved a property sale to March1.
“I think we were super excited that we got to a point where everybody just sharpened their pencils, took out their calculators and made it happen,” Moreno Valley Councilmember Ed Delgado, a commission member, said at the time.
Also in 2025, Niemann said Riverside Medical Clinic bought 10 acres of the site for an 110,000-square-foot outpatient and surgical center and that the developer had $440 million in financing to buy 25 acres for a 100-bed acute care hospital, with construction starting in 2026 and finishing in 2029.
The developer’s website for the project touts it as “a full continuum of care, planned as a single city.”
“MarchLife is the largest private redevelopment in Riverside County history, a master-planned medical campus that brings acute care, specialty hospitals, senior living, research, and retail onto one shovel-ready site,” the website reads.
The authority is a separate legal entity from the air reserve base, which is expected to receive 12 of the next generation of air force tanker planes in the coming years.
The KC-46A Pegasus planes — flying gas stations capable of refueling other aircraft mid-flight — are expected to keep the base open for decades to come.