Visalia builds toward more industrial space
The city of Visalia plans to open up more land for industrial development following a recent report. At its Feb. 3 meeting, the Visalia City Council heard a presentation by 4- Creeks consultants suggesting expansion of industrial park zoning south of Highway 198 adjacent to the airport as well as west of Highway 99 around the city wastewater treatment plant. Currently the industrial park is east of Highway 99 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. Mayor Brett Taylor said he was generally in favor of expansion of industrial lands but not so much west of Highway 99 where the city has the sewer farm surrounded by farmland. The report suggested the city allow for a 248-acre solar farm to provide more renewable power to the community. The site would be near the wastewater treatment plant where the consultant also suggested the city consider new industrial zoning. City-owned land west of the 99 adds up to 1,475 acres that can be potentially developed, the study said. 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 Highway 99. 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 Visalia has 389 parcels totaling 3,543 acres of industrial space with just 945 acres remaining vacant in its sphere of infuence.
“Visalia could see a demand for up to 6.4 million square feet of industrial space by 2033,” 4-Creeks stated in its report. 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 building, a 1.2 million square foot spec “building 3” on Plaza Drive that has sat empty since completion last July. There is also a new 3.7 million square feet industrial park project 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 635,000 square foot JoAnn fabrics distribution center, according to a recent letter the company sent to Mayor Taylor.
Consider that Visalia added 1.1 million square feet of industrial space in 2019, 2.4 million in 2020, 1.5 million in 2021, 1.6 million in 2022 and 1.9 mil in 2023 but just 330,000 square feet of industrial space was added in 2024. Things have slowed down. Nevertheless, councilmember Brian Poochigian said 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 area near the airport attractive.