RIALTO – The demise of more than 400 city redevelopment agencies statewide on Feb. 1 – including Rialto’s – has pushed projects such as a new In-N-Out restaurant all the way back to the negotiating table.Many area redevelopment officials have said that redevelopment funding and rules governing their operations were key tools to eliminating blight and attracting new development.

But now in a post-RDA California, brokers, a developer and the individual restaurants are talking to a new Rialto partner. Similar actions, to be sure, are unfolding up and down the state.

Contract terms painstakingly worked out with the Rialto Redevelopment Agency are now meaningless.

Incentives legally available to a redevelopment agency can’t be offered by the new partner in the transaction – the city of Rialto, said Robb Steel, who ran the city Redevelopment Agency and is now assistant to the city administrator and development services director.

Timing of the dissolution of redevelopment agencies has meant that “the bulk of the big expenses are in front of us,” Steel said late last week in a telephone interview about the restaurants.

The city’s tab for the improvements needed to get the three restaurant pads ready for construction is likely to be between $1.7 million and $2 million, Steel said.

At last week’s City Council meeting, council members made it clear that the general fund should be used to front the expenditures necessary to make

“The city does not have the same (economic development) tools as the Redevelopment Agency, Steel said.

For example, the now dead RDA deal with In-N-Out contained provisions for property-tax and sales-tax rebates, tools not available to a city, Steel said.

On the bright side, it might mean that in a deal with the city, In-N-Out can pay less in wages for the construction of the new restaurant, Steel said.

Under the new rules, negotiations have begun anew with the In-N-Out hamburger restaurant chain and Miguel’s Jr.

The city is also looking for a third restaurant for what would be the largest on the site of former Rialto Fire Station 202, which has moved about two blocks south and officially opened Saturday.

With the demise of redevelopment agencies, “cities are going to have to work more diligently and creatively to attract development,” said Councilman Joe Baca Jr.

In-N-Out and the other restaurants, he said, “will do a lot for the community” and “the return will exceed the investment” over time.

Mayor Pro Tem Ed Scott said the status of the In-N-Out “is the No.1 thing the community talks to me about.”

At Tuesday’s council meeting, Scott asked the city’s staff to work hard and expeditiously to get these deals accomplished.

Steel said that the In-N-Out could open in 2013.

In-N-Out officials could not be reached for comment last week.