Those plans have not been finalized, and on Thursday, Adventist’s Central California Network president, Jason Wells, said the company is probably 18 months away from a decision on how to proceed with the health-care facility.
Bakersfield Commons, proposed to cover 255 acres, has gone through many iterations since the mid-2000s — at one point it was to include a baseball stadium, and later, a Topgolf entertainment center — but a series of deadlines has come and gone.
As of 2021, the plan was to put more than 300 units of multifamily rental housing on the property by the end of 2022. Commercial space was also contemplated, as was 150,000 square feet of retail space including a movie theater, at least one gym, a grocery store and restaurants. They were supposed to have opened early this year.
Strong demand for logistics centers has made industrial property the hottest segment of Kern County’s real estate market. Major retailers including Amazon, Walmart and Target have filled spaces measuring 1 million or more square feet in areas such as Shafter, the Mettler area and Oildale.
Most of those warehouses are located away from busy neighborhoods, making the Rexco project one of few in Kern to be largely surrounded by existing homes, though it won’t be directly adjacent to them.
With the exception of the Adventist property, land for Bakersfield Commons is owned by South Gate-based World Oil Corp., whose president and CFO said in a news release Thursday afternoon that Rexco was a natural choice because of the companies’ shared comment to high quality, state-of-the-art development.
“We’re very pleased to be working in partnership with Rexco Development to deliver this much-needed logistical resource for the Bakersfield region,” Matthew Pakkala stated.
Rexco President Larry Haupert added in the release that his company was thrilled to be working with World Oil on the first development of the Bakersfield Commons site.
“The demand for modern, advanced logistical facilities in the Bakersfield area continues to grow,” he stated.