Tulare
- Farm Credit West's plans for a new, two-story regional office on
the corner of Cartmill Avenue and M Street got an enthusiastic thumbs
up from the Tulare Planning Commission this week.
The commission voted 7-0 to approve a conditional use permit that will allow the company to become the first to build in the Del Lago Development Company's 62-acre Tulare Towne Centre on the north side of Cartmill Avenue west of Highway 99.
“I really like that the building is handsome; it kind of has a Frank Lloyd Wright aspect to it,” Commissioner Chuck Miguel said.
Calling the plans “wonderful,” Commissioner Deanne Rocha said “this is one of the few times I can remember a perspective building project coming into Tulare that is going to take jobs out of Visalia.”
The project will combine Farm Credit West operations in Visalia and Tulare at the Cartmill site, where initially nearly 50 employees will work, said Ernest M. Hodges, the company's executive vice president for administrative operations. The 22,355-square-foot building will be large enough to eventually accommodate 60 employees as the company grows, said Hodges, who came from Roseville for the presentation.
Farm Credit West is a member-owned, financial services cooperative that provides farmers, ranchers and agribusinesses with competitive lending rates and has 12 branch offices that cover about half the state, from Yuba City to the north and Ventura to the south, according to Hodges and the company's Web site.
The decision to build in Tulare was driven primarily by the site's freeway access, Hodges said.
He reported a sales and purchase agreement was entered into in September and the company hopes to complete the transaction before April 2012.
The project was designed with the assumption that the California Department of Transportation will approve the city of Tulare's preferred option for rebuilding the freeway interchange at Cartmill.
If that does not happen, it could delay the project or even make it go away, said Harvey May, who represented Del Lago at Monday's commission meeting.
When the Planning Commission approved plans for Tulare Towne Centre in Aug. 2009, two hotels were planned for what is now the Farm West site.
The Rev. Dennis Sunderland, pastor of nearby Bethel Assembly of God Church, told commissioners his church is “very supportive” of the project.
“It's good for the community and we'll do whatever we can to help them,” Sunderland said.
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