May 5,2018-
Visalia: Toys” R” Us has not closed yet and won’t until June – if then.Still some hope that a number of the stores will survive under a new owner through the bankruptcy process.
Visalia will see new retailers in coming weeks and months including a new paint store at 1501 S Mooney, Dunn Edwards Paints. Also, the Bone Store will be relocating to the Winco shopping center toward the end of May where they will have more space. Downtown, look for Poke House to open – now being remodeled with a new kitchen. Also at 117 E Main ,the old Midtown Sports, there is plan to remodel the multi-story, 8500sf building into a residential/retail mixed use. Also here is a new one. A preliminary plan has been submitted to turn the vacant car dealership building at Mineral King and Burke into a retail gun store featuring indoor shooting. Smoking Barrel Firearms would be the user.
Tulare will get a new Wingstop restaurant at 578 Hillman Street.The eatery is applying for a conditional use permit to sell alcohol to be heard May 14 by Planning Commission.
Visalia: City has installed a new electronic permitting system making it faster and easier for customers to file building plans and for the city to process them. For one thing, the city will not need to have so much space to store those unwieldy blueprints. Sorting data should be much easier as well says planner Jason Huckleberry. Also, the number of new home permits are up 28% so far this year through April. In addition new commercial projects are double last year’s pace and up 166% in value so far in 2018.
Visalia Industrial Park: Broken Drum Insulation is building a new $1.1 million,20,000sf building at 751 Miller Park.The company is the second largest insulation installer in the U.S. residential new construction market.
Visalia Industrial Park : California Dairies has launched 2 divisions in Visalia.They include a new Innovation Center, a R&D unit as well as a lab called Sunrise Lab that employs 67 professionals on Doe Ave.The lab relocated from Tulare late last year says spokesperson Brooke Bennett. Sunrise runs approximately 75,000 tests in the Micro and Chemistry Departments per month.
Tulare County: One of the county’s biggest water supply bottlenecks is along the Friant Kern Canal that could get a fix if voters this November approve a new water bond that is now on the ballot. The bond includes $855 million for improved water conveyance including the Friant Kern Canal the irrigates a million acres of farms on the eastside of the Valley but is down to about half capacity south of Pixley due to land subsidence.
Tipton & Tulare high profile dairy auctions: Another high profile but economically challenged local dairy is set for complete dispersal in May; this time it is the Tulare area Triple V Dairy, auctioning off both their herd and equipment at A&M Livestock Auction May 15. The dairy is high profile in that it is owned in part, by area congressman David Valadaowho is a general partner. Earlier, Triple V was sued over money owed to lender Rabobank.
The dispersal will happen in the same month that another local dairy owned by Greg TeVelde, faces the sale of some 11,000 cows at their Tipton/ Corcoran area ranch May 5. TeVelde is also embroiled in what could be a forced sale of his large Oregon dairy.
In recent days TeVelde declared bankruptcy according to published reports, delaying a Rabobank-forced auction in Oregon that had been scheduled. Here is one report from Associated Press..
“Oregon’s newest large dairy has filed for bankruptcy a day before thousands of its cattle was set to be sold to repay a major creditor.” TeVelde’s bankruptcy petition was filed April 26.
Capital Press reported the bank was looking to foreclose in his assets ” which serve as collateral for $60 million in defaulted loans.”
Tulare County going solar with plans to save $14.7 million in energy costs by installing solar panels at key county facilities with savings over the next 25 years. Solar panels would go up at Government Plaza,Akers Professional Center, Civic Center West, Juvenile Detention complex, So County Detention and the Bob Wiley facility. A report heard May 1 says the County has experienced a 5% increase in power costs over the past 5 to 10 years. Instead of buying the units, the County wants to do a power purchase agreement with a company – Engie- to own and maintain the system with a buyout after 25 years
Springville: PG&E is selling historic South Valley hydro plants. PG&E announced April 27 that it plans to offer for sale two small, non-operational hydroelectric facilities in Kern and Tulare counties this summer.
The Tule River powerhouse was built in 1914 and is located about 35 miles east of Porterville. It has a generating capacity of 6.4 megawatts (MW). Last year, several structures related to supplying water to the penstock — an angled pipe that conveys water to the powerhouse — were damaged in a wildfire and have since been non-operational.
The Kern Canyon facility was built in 1921 and is located east of Bakersfield. The powerhouse, with a generating capacity of 11.5 MW, is fed by flows from a small diversion dam on the Kern River. The dam, its gates and a catwalk were damaged by a rockslide last year. PG&E has taken the dam out of service by removing the spillway gates and boards to allow water to safely pass through.
PG&E plans to initiate an auction in mid-to-late summer 2018, and anticipates it will take two years or more once the auction starts for sales to close and ownership to transfer.