When Mundo Pol opened earlier this month inside the Warnors Center, it marked a turnaround for the nearly 100-year-old theater complex that takes up nearly a quarter of a city block in downtown Fresno.
The building is now at full occupancy, with tenants in all six of its retail spaces.
“Variability in business model,” says Nicole Owens, executive director of the Warnors Center for the Performing Arts, the nonprofit that operates the theater complex. The building isn’t suited for something like a restaurant (“which would be amazing,” Owens says), but it can create a kind of small-business ecosystem where each spot can play off the other.
“ Like the rising tide lifts all boats,” she says.
Mundo Pol recently opened in one of the spaces in the Warnors Theatre building in downtown Fresno. CRAIG KOHLRUSS ckohlruss@fresnobee.com
On the Tuolumne Avenue side of the building there’s a tattoo shop (The Gilded Lady Tattoo); a vintage clothing store (Summoned Clothing, which, sidenote, has been doing PR work with Moses McQueen’s); and two food retailers (BB’s Gelateria and Sacred Heart Coffee).
On Fulton Street there’s clothing design/lifestyle store Mundo Pol and yoga studio/event third-space Maarte.
The nonprofit also has space for its business and box office, alongside the complex’s three entertainment venues: Warnors Theatre, Frank’s Place and Star Palace.
“They all kind of complement each other,” Owens says.
They are also representative.
Two of the businesses are queer-owned. Five of the six are owned or co-owned or operated by women. They are all local entrepreneurs who need the kind of starting point the complex provides.
“We are certainly prioritizing our community,” she says.
See also: the theater’s partnership with the Chanticleer Shakespeare Company.
Turnover at the complex
Of course, the complex has had a history of turnover in its retail spaces over the years.
In the 2010s, there was a slate of businesses including All Things Fresno and Misc. Trading Co., and Fulton Cycle Works (which left for downtown Hanford in 2016 after a series of break-ins). The promotions company Love the Captive also had a short stint in the building. They were followed by the trendy Valley-centric Root General store, which opened in 2015, the novelty boutique Scraps and a bookstore/print shop, 1418 Daily Market.
But the complex saw a mass exodus in 2022, when Root closed down after seven years in its space. Scraps and 1418 also left and two other retailers (the mid-century modern art gallery Modern Farm and vintage shop Friends of Yours) didn’t renew leases.
Fulton Street Coffee was the center’s only outside tenant for the better part of a year. It eventually closed in 2024.
Sacred Heart Coffee reopened in its space the following year.
Owens sees the Warnors Corner (as they call it), “as a cool little temperature check on downtown Fresno. It’s an example of the critical mass that happens when businesses are clustered, when the lights are all on and everyone is activated the same time.
“Then, we just start knocking dominoes down.”
Pablo Leon of Mundo Pol adjusts a coat displayed in the window of the business located in the Warnors Theatre building in downtown Fresno. CRAIG KOHLRUSS ckohlruss@fresnobee.com 
Pablo Leon of Mundo Pol sorts through some of the fashion styles the business offers along with art and design creations in their Warnors Theatre building location in downtown Fresno. CRAIG KOHLRUSS ckohlruss@fresnobee.com
The Fresno Bee
Joshua Tehee covers breaking news for The Fresno Bee, writing on a wide range of topics from police, politics and weather, to arts and entertainment in the Central Valley.