After more that two years of shopping, the Jurupa Community Services District wants to buy 20 acres in Mira Loma for a new administration building and maintenance yard.

The property on Bellegrave Avenue, west of Etiwanda Avenue, is a stone's throw from the site of a proposed mega-warehouse -- a project that has raised the hackles of Sky Country residents across the street.

It's a fact that hasn't been lost on Carole McGreevy, general manager of the water and sewer agency.

"We're hoping we won't have problems with the community," McGreevy said. "We're planning to design the building so that it works well with the rural atmosphere. There will be nothing that will look out of place."

McGreevy said the property, which is part of the Hoekstra dairy, suited the district's needs because it is centrally located, is in a semi-commercial area and offers customers easy access.

Penny Newman, whose Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice has spearheaded opposition to the proposed warehouse, said she didn't anticipate any problems with the district's project.

Although having the maintenance yard there would probably increase Bellegrave Avenue traffic, Newman said, "There's a big difference between having an office facility there with their trucks out back and having thousands of diesel trucks going in and out of a warehouse every day."

Rosemarie Briseno, a 22-year Sky Country resident whose Hamal Avenue property backs up to Bellegrave Avenue, said she liked the idea of having the water and sewer agency's administration building on Bellegrave.

"We need small offices with good landscaping over there. We need that type of buffer between Sky Country and the industrial area," Briseno said.

The maintenance yard is another matter.

"Their current operations yard (on Limonite Avenue) looks like a dumping ground," Briseno said. "We don't need that here."

The agency provides water and sewer service to residents of the unincorporated Jurupa communities of Glen Avon, Sunnyslope, Pedley, much of Mira Loma and Eastvale. The agency also is developing a park system for Eastvale, a dairy-farm area that is rapidly developing into residential tracts.

To reduce crowding at the district's office on Jurupa Road, the board of directors moved its twice-monthly meetings to the Glen Avon library 18 months ago, freeing space for office use.

"And it's not just the bodies," McGreevy said. "When we need to buy any type of office equipment, we don't have any place to put it."

Field personnel work out of the Limonite Avenue maintenance yard.

McGreevy said projections indicate the district will have an estimated 40,000 water connections in 20 to 30 years -- nearly triple the 13,500 water connections it has now.

The district can expect to double its 42-member staff during that time, McGreevy said.