Riverside, Calif., May, 2000--More than 200 people are expected to gather today at 3 p.m. for a symbolic tree-planting ceremony that will serve as the official start of Griffin Industries Riverwalk Parkway project.

The RiverWalk project is the capstone event for the university's land development project. In March, La Sierra sold nearly 200 acres to the Calabasas-based land development company. The land ultimately will become eight residential housing developments, with more than 1,044 homes.

La Sierra is retaining ownership of a 50-acre tract of land directly east of the campus that will become university "park land': landscaped walkways, irrigation-fed streams and a series of athletic fields for student and employee use. The project also calls for a new ceremonial entrance to the university.

Today's tree-planting ceremony will take place just off Pierce Avenue, approximately a quarter-mile north of the 91 interchange. On an abandoned parking lot from a long-defunct golf driving range, La Sierra President Lawrence Geraty and Paul Griffin, president of Griffin Industries, will plant a schinus molle tree, more commonly known as a pepper tree. The tree will be the first of more than 20,000 that the land development corporation will plant in its residential developments.

In addition to city dignitaries and members of the La Sierra Board of Trustees, Riverside Mayor Ronald Loveridge and Riverside councilwomen Laura Pearson and Terri Thompson will be in attendance.

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