Kings County 2025 Forecast: Open for business, ready to fight
The Nov. 29 print edition of The Business Journal included economic forecasts for each of the four counties we cover. We will be sharing them throughout the week.
Kings County is rich in agriculture and manufacturing, with millions of pounds of cheese produced by suppliers large and small each day. Next year retail, hotels and even industrial are coming to a new development off Interstate 5. Cities including Hanford and Lemoore are positioning themselves to attract new businesses — and succeeding. Economic development leaders there have plenty of reasons to be optimistic about 2025.
But on the farm production side, the last few years haven’t been easy. In March 2023 the country and the world marveled at the return of the ancient Tulare Lake, the result of a historically wet water year. The lakebed cotton fields near Corcoran took the biggest hit, with the most recent crop report for 2023 showing annual crop receipts down 17%.
Kings County growers, led by the Kings County Farm Bureau and its Executive Director Dusty Ference, are currently engaged in a fierce legal battle with the state’s water board that could ultimately decide how much it will cost them to pump water from the ground.
All signs point to an eventful 2025 for Kings County.
Open for business
The Kings County Economic Development Corp. has been on the frontline of attracting new businesses to the area. The team meets with national site selectors, collaborates regionally and coordinates locally to put Kings County’s best foot forward.
“All projects and collaborative efforts strive for similar goals: to create jobs, to upskill employees, to expand capacity and to infuse resources into the local economy,” said Julieta Martinez, Kings EDC president and CEO, in the recently released 2024 annual report.
Fabio Ianni is the Kings EDC economic development manager. In the last year and a half, he has digitally and physically attended more than a dozen events across the country, meeting with site selectors, commercial real estate brokers and development decision makers. Broker missions took the Kings EDC to the Bay Area, Southern California and even Atlanta, Georgia, where they met with nearly 100 brokers and site selectors. From the Kings EDC perspective, everything is looking up for Kings County, including population, employment growth and productivity in agriculture and manufacturing.
The pipeline
Truck stops and fueling facilities with retail are hot, with Maverik building a new facility in Lemoore. It includes a 6,000 square-foot convenience store and drive-thru restaurant. Construction workers will be busy in Lemoore working on the new Visual Arts and Applied Science instructional building at Lemoore College. At two stories and more than 44,00 square feet, it is expected to open in spring 2026. Tennessee-based Helena Agri-Enterprises, LLC, is building a new fertilizer and crop input products storage facility in Lemoore that should be completed before the end of 2025.
The long-anticipated Jackson Ranch development, and its master-planned 415 acres of retail, hotels and industrial, will finally get its wings in 2025. The first businesses there (a Chevron and Shell fueling station) are expected to open in Q1 — maybe even within weeks. Phase 1 plans include restaurant pads and a pair of hotels. Jackson Ranch is located on Utica Avenue in Kettleman City along Interstate 5 — one of the state’s busiest freeways.
“It’s a very strategic location,” Ianni said.
There are also milestones coming in the new year. Kings County agricultural powerhouse J.G. Boswell will celebrate its 100th anniversary in business in the second quarter of 2025. The family-owned and operated company specializes in the production, processing, and marketing of cotton, tomatoes and more.
Courthouse to tap room
One of the City of Hanford’s historical buildings has found a new purpose with the council’s decision earlier to sell the original courthouse building from 1896 to BarrelHouse Brewing Co. for $1. Though based in Paso Robles, BarrelHouse Brewing has made itself at home in the Valley with taprooms in Visalia and Fresno’s River Park. The Hanford location would be a Kings County homecoming, as BarrelHouse co-owners Jason Carvalho and Kevin Nickell were both raised in Lemoore.
“We’re a gathering place for friends and family,” Carvalho said earlier this month during a council meeting. “We want to be the spot that you can just come after work, bring your friends and family, have a good time. And that’s something that’s missing in Hanford.”
Nickell said their goal is to have a Barrelhouse business on the Courthouse’s top floor along with other tenants in the building. Renovation work is expected to continue through to a possible 2026 opening.
Neat streets
The East Lacey Boulevard Corridor Improvement Project is moving forward in Hanford — currently in the design phase, said Brian Johnson, City of Hanford community relations manager. Final construction documents scheduled to be completed soon. The $7.3 million project is expected to turn the “gritty industrial road to a multi-use, landscaped street that will open up opportunities for residential and commercial development,” reported the Hanford Sentinel in August. Construction could begin next year. Hanford also recently passed a 1% sales tax — the first in the City’s history, said Johnson. This new revenue stream will allow the City to maintain and improve essential services, which they hope will contribute to the City’s overall economic growth.
“You don’t get many developers that come into a town they want to invest in that’s not willing to invest in itself,” said Public Works Director Russ Sterling.
Farm bureau fight
The Kings County Farm Bureau is fighting a designation of the Tulare Lake Subbasin as under probation by the State Water Resources Control Board. As part of the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), growers in the Tulare Lake Subbasin would have to pay $20 per acre foot of water pumped as part of their probation. The Farm Bureau scored a legal victory in September when Kings County Superior Court Judge Kathy Ciuffini granted a preliminary injunction against the State Water Board.
“Today’s ruling highlights the validity of our claims and showcases our likelihood to win in court in the future,” Dusty Ference, executive director of the Farm Bureau, said in a statement.
It has been an expensive effort for the Farm Bureau, with more than $257,000 in legal fees to date. On Jan. 10, 2025, the Farm Bureau will be in court for a second case management system. A trial date could be set for later in the year. Water agencies across the state are watching the legal matter for its implications for the implementation of SGMA.
https://thebusinessjournal.com/kings-county-open-for-business-ready-to-fight/