As inmate population declines, Norco prison will close. Will it be a luxury hotel again?

Los Angeles Times

06-08-2025

A Riverside County state correctional facility housing nearly 3,000 inmates is slated to close in fall 2026, continuing a wave of recent prison shutdowns, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced Monday.
A declining prison population and multimillion-dollar cost savings for the state were the motivating factors for the shuttering, according to the department.
The Norco prison is a Level 2 medium-security correctional facility holding 2,766 inmates who committed felonies. Approximately 1,200 workers staff the prison, according to the department.
No inmates are expected to be released early because of the closure and will instead be transferred to existing facilities, the CDCR said.
The department noted it would attempt to transfer employees at the facility to other sites and to other jobs throughout the state. It did not say in its release, however, if there would be layoffs.
A call to a corrections spokesperson was not immediately returned.
The state is expected to save $150 million annually due to the closure.
Will Matthews, a spokesperson for nonprofit crime victims advocacy group Californians for Safety and Justice, said he hoped the state would redirect some of that savings toward 'creating safety at the community level.'
'If you look at how crime has dropped in the last decade, it's been an effort to balance criminal justice with programs that reduce crime and help prevent harm,' Matthews said. 'That includes housing support programs, drug treatment and job training, which has worked.'
Homicides in the city of Los Angeles are projected to hit their lowest levels in 60 years, according to a July report from the Los Angeles Police Department. Killings are also down in Los Angeles County.
Statewide, crimes including arson (5.8%), burglary (13.9%), assaults (1.8%) and auto thefts (15.5%) all saw drops statewide from 2023 to 2024, according to the Center on Juvenile & Criminal Justice.
Falling crime rates have equated to smaller prison populations, the CDCR said.
The department noted that the inmate population across its 30 prisons is roughly 91,000, which is nearly half of the 173,000 people incarcerated in 2006.
Matthews said that drop had been partly facilitated by the passing of criminal justice reform measures, such as Proposition 57 in 2016, which allowed parole consideration for people convicted of nonviolent felonies.
The CDCR noted other reforms, such as Assembly Bill 109, which shifted some prison populations from state to county facilities, also helped lower inmate populations.
'We commend both Gov. Gavin Newsom and CDCR for their historic and continued commitment to moving California away from overspending on a system that doesn't deliver on safety,' said Tinisch Hollins, executive director for Californians for Safety and Justice, in a statement.
Norco's closure continues a recent trend of shuttering correctional institutions, with facilities closed in Tracy in 2021, Susanville in 2023 and in Blythe this year. In total, the CDCR said it had recently deactivated 11 facilities and portions of two others, along with 42 housing units across 11 prisons.
What the future holds for Norco's facility — which at one time was a resort — remains a mystery.
The CDCR said it would implement a 'warm shutdown' process that would maintain the property in a state of readiness to either be reused or sold.
The Norco City Council did not issue a comment about the facility's closing and said it was unsure how the closure would affect the community.
In its release, the CDCR said 'the state will provide support to the affected local community and workforce with an economic resiliency plan' but did not offer details.
One of the City Council's adopted legislative platform priorities is to advocate for the adaptive reuse of the former Norconian Hotel and Resort property.
'The City of Norco remains hopeful that one day, this historic gem will be restored to its former glory as a resort and will become a regional economic driver,' the City Council wrote in a statement to The Times.
The correctional facility first opened in 1928 as the Lake Norconian Club, a luxury hotel.
It was repurposed during World War II into a Naval hospital before the federal government donated the medical building in 1962 for use as a narcotics center. It took its current form, as a correctional facility, during the 1980s.