Linens 'n Things, the national home furnishings retailer, will close five of its eight Inland Empire locations.

Stores at Chino Spectrum Marketplace II, Corona Hills Plaza, Montclair Plaza, Hunters Ridge Town Center in Fontana and Canyon Springs Parkway in Riverside will all close by August, said Rich Tauberman, spokesman for the Clifton, N.J.-based chain.

Linen 'n Things stores at Eastvale Gateway in Mira Loma, Monterey Marketplace in Rancho Mirage and The Commons at Temecula will remain in business.

The soon-to-be closed stores are all leased sites that cover between 31,000 and 42,000 square feet each, and each employs 20 to 25 people.

All of those workers may reapply for jobs with the chain, which will continue to operate 57 stores in California.

"We're going to reassign as many of those people as we can," Tauberman said.

The closings, announced May 2, are part of the company's recent Chapter 11 filing. Linens 'n Things is closing 120 stores nationwide, including 27 in California.

No closing dates for the Inland region stores have been set.

"We don't have exact closing dates because there are a lot of factors involved, like court rulings, getting out of the leases and how long some of the going-out-of-business sales will last," Tauberman said. "But we expect them to be closed by August."

After the closings, Linens Holdings Co., the chain's parent company, will operate about 470 Linens 'n Things stores in the United States and Canada. No stores in Canada will be closed.

Linens 'n Things reported $2.8 billion in sales last year, but the current economic downturn prompted it to file Chapter 11 so it could restructure and shed some of its underperforming stores.

"Closing a store is never easy, but we think this is the most cost-efficient thing we can do in the long run," Tauberman said. "Home furnishing stores are usually one of the first things that get hit when the economy slows down."

New headquarters for non-profit

A groundbreaking ceremony was scheduled May 8 for the planned headquarters of the Inland Regional Center.

The three-building, 200,000-square-foot facility will be located at 1385 Waterman Ave. in San Bernardino's Waterman Business Park. It will be one of the business park's anchor tenants, according to a release.

The Inland Regional Center is a non-profit agency that assists developmentally disabled children and adults in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

The California Housing Foundation in Redlands, a non-profit that was founded by the regional center 10 years ago to support the regional center's work, bought the land with a $76 million revenue bond issued by the California Statewide Communities Development Authority.

Money from that bond will also be used to build the headquarters, according to the release.

The headquarters will cost about $40 million to build. Last year, the regional center - which currently operates out of the Tri-City Corporate Center in San Bernardino near Waterman Business Park - announced that it was considering moving to Redlands.

San Bernardino officials then began talks with regional center officials and persuaded them to stay, preserving an estimated 600 jobs for the city.

Waterman Business Park is an office and industrial business center that covers about 500,000 square feet. It is being developed by Voit Development Cos. in Newport Beach on 31 acres at Waterman Avenue and Parkcenter Circle North/South, near the interchange of Interstates 10 and 215.