FRESNO, Calif. (KMPH) — Southeast Fresno is receiving a makeover. The new Fancher Creek Center has opened Target, with more stores set to open soon.
Packed parking lots and frequent foot traffic. What was once a dirt lot is now a busy shopping center.
“When I noticed that it was opening, I was like, yay, now we’re going to have a new target, and it’s huge,” Sid Cryspin Sharp.
Cryspin and Zoey Sharp came with their grandparent on Sunday afternoon.
Living in southeast Fresno, they say this shopping center will save them time and gas.
“It’s nicer to have a bunch of more stores opening up, so you don’t have to travel so far. it’s going to be a lot easier to get here. I would say it would save us more than 30 minutes to try to get somewhere,” said Sharp.
FOX 26 caught up with Fresno City Councilmember Brandon Vang, who says this project has been years in the making.
From the beginning of an idea to the groundbreaking to the brick-and-mortar to the ribbon-cutting ceremony, it’s been almost 20 years, and personally, for my family. It’s been almost 17 years. We moved here in 2009, waiting for this shopping center to be open, and here we are, reality is here.
Vang says the Target alone has created over 200 jobs, and once this shopping center is fully completed with Sprouts, In-N-Out, and other stores, that number will jump to 12-hundred new jobs.
The tax dollars generated from these establishments will be spent and have been spent by the local community members. And so their tax dollars are being spent locally and being reinvested locally,” said Vang.
Vang says this is just the start of revitalizing a part of town many feel has been forgotten.
“If you have not been here, please come. You will see a different part of Southeast Fresno,” said Vang.
He says that with lots of space on the north end, the city is looking to attract more retailers.