-August 11,2022-
Developer Caprock plans 2.7 mil square ft in four new buildings
The Visalia Industrial Park has plenty of room to grow to its north and west without impacting Visalia’s populated neighborhoods. Now the park’s biggest developer,Newport Beach-based CapRock, who has worked with Amazon to occupy two, million square plus warehouses here, is now planning a third – even larger complex to the west of Plaza and a country block north of Riggin.
According to the plan filed with the city last month, the developer would phase construction of the 155 acre industrial park with the first phase breaking ground next year, says principal Pat Daniels.Total under roof would be 2.7 million square feet in 4 concrete tilt-up buildings.
While the tenants for the buildings are speculative, the plan suggests they could employ around 2000 workers with some 2100 parking places for cars.The plan says they want to feed inbound trucks into the new cluster of buildings off of Plaza.
The huge parcel, Phase 3 of the Caprock developments – will be sandwiched in between Kibler on the north, Plaza on the east, America (Rd 76) to the west and Riverway on the south – one mile north of Riggin along Modoc Ditch.
Full buildout and signalization of the Kibler Ave. and Plaza Dr. intersection is required with the development of Phase 2A of the Caprock projects- the new Amazon now nearing completion just north of the first Amazon. If you did not know, the Caprock’s plan includes another million sq ft planned at the southeast corner of Kibler and Plaza currently just scrub land.
Now Daniels has jumped Plaza to do the next phase (3) west of Plaza that will be built out before Phase 2b starts in a few years, says Daniels. The reason could be Daniels has a different LLC who looks to invest in Phase 3 and perhaps a proposed tenant who has selected this location a mile closer to Highway 99.
The following changes have been incorporated into the site plan since the first Site Plan Review meeting January 5, 2022 for Phase 3. The site plan incorporates changes to address input received from the City of Visalia thru subsequent meetings on January 21, 2022, and March 29, 2022.
Onsite construction will be phased, and offsite improvements on Plaza, Keebler, and future American are anticipated to be completed as detailed in requirements previously provided by City of Visalia. There are no vehicular or truck access points being proposed to American/Road 76 with Building 1
One thing to keep in mind, this new project is literally pioneering this area requiring all off site infrastructure to be in place before development is done, a time consuming process.
A little history:
CapRock set off the Visalia logistics boom, selling acreage to UPS that became a 450,000 square-foot package distribution hub opening in 2020. That was followed by construction of the 1.1 million square-foot Amazon fulfillment center, operational as of last September. Between the two locations, 1,700 people are employed.
A handful of large players are building or planning to build including Phoenix based Seefried Industries nearing completion the new Ace Hardware center and planning another 535,00sf spec building, YS Industries who just this week filed plans for a 1.55 mil sf development, Fowler Packing – planing to break ground early next year on a 312,000sf warehouse, American Air’s Butch Oldfield, busy with a slew of new industrial projects and Irvine-based Greenfield Partners working on a 2 mil sf complex at Kelsey and 198. Also add the Ritchie/Vidovich partners who plan a massive new park north of Riggin and west of Shirk totaling 280 acres and adding some 3000 new jobs.
Don’t forget who was the largest player for years here, John Brelsford’s DDG company who has 150 acres at Plaza and Riggin.The Fresno company started the spec building trend in Visalia.
Besides these big projects, the industrial park is also laying out new mom and pop industrial parcels from 5 to 10 acres mostly south of Goshen Ave along American. Now investor Santokh Toor has filed preliminary plans for an 80 acre development with 10 small parcels at American and Hurley. west of Plaza.