The Visalia City Council heard your presentation by 4-Creeks consultants suggesting expansion of industrial park zoning west of 198 adjacent the airport as well as west of 99 around the city wastewater treatment plant. Currently the industrial park is east of 198 concentrated in the northwest corner of the city.
The council voted 5-0 to take the next step to move the project forward that will require a full environmental impact report.
Asked about the suggestions, Mayor Brett Taylor said he was in general in favor of expansion of industrial lands but not so much west of 99 where the city has the sewer farm surrounded by farmland.
The report offered that the city should site a 248 acre solar farm to provide more renewable power to the community. The site would be around the wastewater treatment plant where the consultant also is suggesting the city consider new industrial zoning.
Land west of 99 owned by the city adds up to 1,475 acres that can be potentially developable, says the study. Again that idea may not move forward.
There does seem to be support for setting up a so-called “reserve” industrial area adjacent to the airport and south of Caldwell stretching down to the highway 99 freeway. The report points to the major overhaul of the Caldwell interchange underway over the next 3-4 years.
The reserve area could be around 405 acres. Staff will have to suggest a trigger for opening this land.It will be years before new zoning is in place.
The study makes the case that the city needs more available industrial land to meet demand, suggesting there is a low inventory of available space and empty land.
The report calculates we have 389 parcels totaling 3,543 acres with 945 acres remaining vacant.
As to demand “Visalia could see a demand for up to 6.4 million square feet of industrial space by 2033.”
But the study does not seem to acknowledge that there are active industrial projects lined up to build at least that much right now. That includes the vacant CapRock 1.2 mil/sf spec “building 3” on Plaza that has sat empty since completion last July and a new 3.7 million square feet industrial park north of Riggin and west of Shirk going through a final EIR now.
At the same time industrial building activity in the past year has slowed to a crawl in Visalia and across California.Now the city may lose the 635,000sf JoAnn fabrics distribution center the company told Mayor Taylor in a letter recently.
Consider that Visalia saw 1.1 mil sf of industrial space added in 2019, 2.4 mil in 2020,1.5 mil in 2021,1.6 mil in 2022 and 1.9 mil in 2023 but now saw just 330,000sf of industrial space added in 2024. Things have slowed down.
Nevertheless, councilmember Brian Poochigian seems to speak for all council members that the city needs to plan ahead and adding more space in the future could attract new business to town – smaller entrepreneurial industrial projects that could find the airport area location attractive.
caption: Visaia is expected to add over 400 acres of industrial zoning around the airport