Industrial Park Could Head West of 99

Visalia - Get ready for another debate over growth in Visalia with automalls and south Mooney.

The committee drafting policy for the Visalia Industrial Park master plan is debating whether to include a west of 99 option on the two mile stretch between 198 and Caldwell Ave. - portions of it owned by the City of Visalia already.

The land west of the airport is also the home of Visalia's sewer treatment plant and enjoys direct access to key transportation corridors - 198 and 99 as well as the Union Pacific RR line expected to be the route of the proposed High Speed Rail as well in the future.

But it's the proximity of the sewer system that makes the big difference to committee member Mike Lane, a civil engineer who has served as a Visalia Planning Commissioner and is now chair of the industrial park committee.

"When your master plan calls for targeting food processing companies, building just one 18 inch sewer line uses up all the capacity for just one mid size plant," says Lane.

"Putting the industries right near the sewer system saves money big time" he argues, helping to cut the costs for both the industry and the city. Lane believes Visalia could attract more ag based processing companies here if this location was an option.

The alternative is to add acreage to our industrial park north and west - both away from the city treatment facility requiring miles of pipeline and costly lift stations. Just this week the city approved a new contract to spend $7.6 million to upgrade the treatment plant for its current 16.6 million gallons per day to 20 mgd allowing the city the capacity needed to attract the next major employer.

The committee has hired Quad Knopf to study the alternatives in expanding the industrial park "the question is where and how," says long time planner Harry Tow of Quad Knopf. "The obvious thing is that you save valuable sewer line capacity" by locating perhaps a several hundred acre park across 99 enjoying good access not just from Caldwell but from the new 198 interchange at Rd. 68 planned in the future, he says.

Tow says he and lead Quad Knopf planner Steve Peck are working with the committee that includes industrial park, city and county officials. He expects the report on the expansion plan could be five months off and cautions that "we haven't made a decision yet on the west of 99" option.

Tow who had a hand in founding the original industrial park helping to bring in companies to build our job base in the 1960s, says Visalia has built sewer capacity to allow it to expand north and west toward Goshen if that decision is made.

An example of the dilemma the city faces is news that a North Carolina meat company is looking for sites in the industrial park right now. The unnamed company could hire as many as 500 employees and build a 100,000 sq. ft. facility according to Linda Tolbert of the Visalia Economic Development Corporation.

Ag related industries and big food processors are likely to find it attractive to be located well out of the urban areas of Visalia where they won't impact subdivisions and schools with the potential noise, odor or truck traffic that these companies bring.

Yet these "value added" companies provide an outlet for the local farmers helping to boost demand. The rise of the milk processing industry here is seen as a model for an economic prototype with the dairy sector being the County's number one crop and one of the few crops categories that is thriving.

The attraction of Highway 99 to ag industry is clear to any observer who passed through just a decade ago and today with perhaps ten major expansions along 99 rising like the City of Oz along the corridor. New giant storage tanks at the Sunkist in Tipton installed in recent months are the latest example, increasing the plant's capacity to make premium orange juice. The huge California Dairies Tipton plant is expanding in coming months and the new CPI milk plant will take its first shipment of milk in a matter of weeks. Goshen itself has been a hub of these industries in recent years with grain and processing towers being landmarks you can see for miles away. The corridor is becoming an employment base. But Visalia has no frontage.

What will be the counter argument? One will likely be made from private owners of the current industrial park who may point out that the city would be in competition with them to attract industry. Another will clearly be made from supporters of the current 2020 plan who see any change from that vision as growth inducing and opening the door for other changes in the boundary.

The approval of a new industrial park will require an annexation and change in the County's General Plan even though some of the land is owned by the City. Will other development follow?

Then there will be arguments that the city's plan would pave over farm land and of course the argument against more traffic and smog.

The counter argument is that forces not envisioned in the 2020 plan are coming to bear in the next few years including the fact that:

• The High Speed Rail station for Tulare/Visalia is likely to located there with a chance for a major shipping hub that goes with it. Add to that the potential for a 300 job maintenance station to serve the line if land was donated to the project.

• Highway 99 will be expanded to 6 lanes further increasing the desirability of the location for ag based shipping. Smog rules will help promote near to 99 (and airport) shipping points. Gourmet cheese or that fruit smoothie made in Visalia on Monday night may be eaten by a consumer in Washington DC on Tuesday, in Tokyo a matter of days later - a just-in-time scenario.

• An ag industrial park could be zoned for just that excluding everyone else with only a little highway commercial retail. The land surrounding it could remain in farming excluding those Walmart's from fleeing the city and hurting Mooney Blvd. for example.

• From a saving resource basis the site has not only sewer capacity close at hand, but millions of gallons of reclaimed water and the potential to utilize a waste stream to make energy - power that an be used to further lower the cost of any ag based industry who locates here. The use of waste water to cool an energy plant for example is shown by plans for Calpine's 1000 mw plant on the westside using waste water from a Fresno treatment facility.

Unaware of these deliberations is Project Green owner Kent Kaulfuss who is working on some ag energy uses at his 100 acre farm next to the sewer plant. Kaulfuss says this idea jibes with what he has planned as well including a possible ethanol manufacturing facility.

The city had suggested this general location for the relocation of the Farm Bureau's sponsored stockyard on Ben Maddox to the 900 acre walnut orchard the city owns next to the treatment plant. Even today that site would work out fine, says a Farm Bureau source, since the city seeks to redevelop that area in east Visalia.

From an engineering point of view the idea has merit, says the city's public works staffer Lew Nelson who says a number of major food companies in Visalia haven't expanded because of sewer line capacity issues over the years including Real Fresh and Knudsen. Knudsen, if it wanted to expand would have to fund a new line to carry away solids from the processing plant at a cost of $50 a foot.

Nelson reminds us of the struggle in Clovis recently to build a new sewer plant in that town - actually a water treatment plant used to free up space in the line extracting and cleaning water to allow room to pass solids through. Like Visalia the interest in the sewer plant is related to lack of pipeline capacity. Although this Clovis project is going to be close to town which the Visalia sewer farm is designed not to be.

Nelson says Visalia is one of the few cities in the Valley with available sewer capacity. Just this week he got a call from a major vegetable processor who needs 400,000 gallons a day, he says.

There is still another factor that should be concerned. That's the fact that the existing industrial park vacant land is in relatively few hands limiting the land competition. To the degree that competition can be expanded we may be able to attract more business and more jobs.

An unknown is whether airport interests will object to industry on the west side of the freeway - parallel to the typical flight path. The area is in airport compatibility zone C like much of the existing industrial park.

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Visalia - Chicago-based General Growth Properties has acquired JP Realty Inc. - owner of the Visalia Mall and 17 other regional malls in the West. General Growth opened the Sequoia Mall in the 1980s and now will return to Visalia to manage the 439,000 sq. ft. Visalia Mall. General Growth paid $1.1 billion for the assets of Utah-based JP Realty that included assumption of $460 million in debt.

Visalia Mall, the city's largest shopping center, first opened in 1964 in a former peach orchard. Renovated in 1997, the mall added a 450 car parking garage in order to expand square footage on the 27 acre parcel.

General Growth is a much larger player in the mall business - the nation's second largest with 141 shopping malls in 39 states. The company has been growing rapidly even as the mall business has been consolidating nationwide. This makes the fifth major acquisition by General Growth since it became publically traded in 1993.

General Growth not only used to own the Sequoia Mall - they managed the Visalia Mall for the former owners, Cigna, and actually organized the 1997 expansion. President of the company, John Bucksbaum "knows Visalia" says a knowledgeable source and is "well aware of the potential to expand." That expansion was done with cooperation of the city's redevelopment agency. The company also owns the 1 million sq. ft., five anchor mall in Bakersfield and they still manage the Hanford Mall in Hanford.

JP Realty had owned the Visalia Mall since 1998. In recent years the City of Visalia had tried to encourage the Utah-based management to expand the Visalia Mall suggesting they work with developer Dave Paynter on a possible expansion of the landlocked mall across Mooney or at least an exploration of the idea. But JP Realty appeared to be focused on the opening of a new Phoenix mall, say city officials, and although there were discussions about the idea, they didn't go anywhere.

Now with a new, very well capitalized player in the mall business discussions of expansion could begin again. Mall architects had drawn up a possible plan to site a new department store on the northside of the mall but assumed it would also require an adjacent parking garage. The suggestion was that the mall could be double-decked to add leaseable space to the 78 store fronts already at the center.

JP Realty is named for John Price who as a Republican activist was recently named Ambassador to an African country last month. JP Realty's malls, spread throughout the intermountain west, tended to produce lower per square footage sales than General Growth's average mall. The JP Realty average is around $260 per sq. ft. and General Growth enjoys $340 per sq. ft. average.

Some malls around the country suffering from competition from big discount outlets have actually closed their doors even as some mall retailers have suffered as well.

While JP Realty malls are averaging around 83% occupancy, the Visalia Mall is 99% full.

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Visalia - Kaweah Delta Hospital's ambitious plan to expand in Downtown Visalia got cheers from Downtown business officials and Visalia city council members this week even though the plan will cost millions of dollars and mean the closure of some streets.

The hospital is proposing the eventual expansion both north and west of the existing hospital covering all or part of 15 blocks downtown laid out "like the best planned university, we plan to have a beautiful campus," vows the hospital's CEO Lindsay Mann.

Mann described the hospital's 20 year plan that includes an immediate push north with construction of an expanded ER, chest pain center and the new 6 level tower on Acequia that would house the Heart Institute and new surgical and maternity care units at a cost that could exceed $120 million. The incrementally the hospital would add addition medical towers to the west building utilizing a cross Acequia St. bridge pattern with multilevel garages. The first project is to build a 700 car parking structure with a bridge to the new tower behind Buckman Mitchell within the next 3 years. The huge project should create an extra 300 jobs with an eventual doubling of the medical jobs in downtown over the next 20 years.

An enthused city council didn't blink at a long wish list the hospital made available with nothing on the list deemed unworkable, agreed city manager Steve Salomon. "I think this council committed to making this happen," agreed mayor Jesus Gamboa. The two entities formed a working committee to go over the plan to come to some conclusion in the next 30 days. That would trigger a contract between the two "partners" to implement the plan ending any doubt the hospital would remain in the Downtown long term - a major concern of the city. "This is the single most important thing we could do to ensure the vitality of Downtown Visalia," said Salomon.

Tough issues include the closing of streets including West, Willow, and Willis and the implementing of Acequia into a 2 way street. The plan will work with CalTrans to also move the on and off ramps on 198 over to Johnson to improve access into the campus. Salomon promises to work with CalTrans to see if a pedestrian structure over the 198 freeway is possible as well.

Already the Property Based Improvement District has voted to put in $650,000 into the parking structure just west of Locust and Mann says an agreement with property owner Stan Simpson to utilize the land where Simpson's small Acequia building has been worked out - at least primarily.

"The big question going around the hospital is what happens to Checker's," says hospital administrator Dena Cochran, only half kidding. The popular hamburger stand won't be in the path of progress for about another 10 years but then it will have to get out of the way as an all new hospital rises to the west.

Mayor Gamboa sounded a cautionary note echoed by Wendy Rudy that the hospital campus plan should include lots of trees and the opening of the creek through the campus. The city could help by buying some of the setback required to open the creek. But the hospital's initial plan to build a new administration building on the park site at West and Mineral King was questioned by Gamboa who said "we're trying to open things up on the creek and make it green" and covering a park with a building seems like it's going in the other direction. Mann says the hospital needs to find a place to put administration as part of the plan to move service around to make room for the big push northward. He says there might be an alternative site that might work for the administration building but likes this spot because it could mean a new parking area just to the north could be cleared for a new lot. Architect Mike Williams says there is a way to build a handsome new 4-story building on the park site without covering all of the creek but says the hospital will need to go over the creek in the co-gen area that will need to be expanded in the future to meet power and heating needs on this campus.

Both Gamboa and Don Landers says the city's lobbyist is already working on getting some $2 million in federal funding to help build the parking garage. Landers says perhaps the election of Devin Nunes who has close ties with Bill Thomas could help.

Altogether Mann estimates an investment by KDDH of over $400 million to build this regional medical center downtown - a huge shot in the arm for the city center that will likely mean a similar amount invested by other private and public entities because this is happening.

Not that the city is likely to agree to all 17 items on the list the city isn't swimming in money either. The hospital asked the city to buy out their investment in the parking garage to the east of Locust. Easier to swallow will be the city helping the district pass a general obligation bond to ensure Kaweah Delta's care rising top flight.

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Visalia - Competing interests for use of the same real estate has the city council concluding that a key 7 acre piece of land west of Akers and south of 198, might be best used for a family fun center. The parcel is a part of a 30 acre development proposed by Westland Development for a new commercial center on land being purchased from the City of Visalia.

Westlands is nearing final approvals to begin construction on about 11 acres of the center - the last empty corner of 198 and Akers. But just to the west the 7 acres provides an opportunity for freeway visibility as you enter town - a site also acceptable to two Visalia car dealers who say they need that freeway frontage.

But it is also the location where a Hanford based partnership wants to build a 7 acre family fun center - another city council top priority.

This week in a face off of priorities it was the family fun center that appeared to get a higher priority from a split city council. But that doesn't mean there isn't room for an auto mall too, some believe.

It plays out like this. The fun center developers say that despite other locations this is the place they want to be. All the council favors a deal with the family fun center for the Akers and 198 site possibly reducing fees or providing other financial incentives to lower the ultimate cost of developing the site to a first class family fun center featuring miniature golf, batting cages as well as game room and restaurants.

But when it comes to the auto mall idea mayor Gamboa opposes it there, council member Wendy Rudy says there is not room enough there, while Don Landers says he thinks an auto mall "could wrap around the fun park" on land that extends past Roeben. The problem becomes squeezing in a 60 to 80 acre auto mall west of Akers without it extending clear to Shirk.

When you count noses if the car dealers want the Akers site there is apparently 3 votes for it - enough to get it passed.

"It would be a lot easier and quicker to develop an auto mall at Plaza and 198, says Bob Link - the other option for an auto mall that would be in the city limits and where there isn't competing uses vying for the location. That's why city manager Steve Salomon has been urging the Plaza/198 option as a viable alternative to the 198/99 option that has now been approved for filing by the County outside the city limit.

Unlike the Akers site, the Plaza site, at least at one location - the NW corner - could be approved with only a text change in the city's general plan allowing an auto mall in a highway commercial zone. "They could be in there in a matter of weeks" developing the site, says broker George Ouzounian. The other corner would require a general plan amendment - but happening must faster than waiting likely a year and one half to get the 99 and 198 site approved through the county process. That project's not going to happen with lawsuits putting the project even further off, suggest a number of observers.

To add a little more confusion to the situation, developer Ben Ennis now has 80 acres at the northwest corner of Shirk and 198 - in the County - under option for use as an auto mall and has formally filed an application with the County to allow a general plan amendment at that site.

The action confirms fears raised by the city that other developers would use the apparent County policy shift in considering development of these uses outside the urban areas would bring more such applications. While the auto dealers prefer this location - "this is the key pristine place along the corridor the city wants to preserve," says George Ouzounian who knows how land use projects - new malls for example - can stir up a political firestorm that can end political careers.

But council members are not likely to offer an inside-the-city alternative like a Plaza site without answering some questions of what happens to the $8 million debt the city has sunk into the current Visalia auto mall on Ben Maddox, says Wendy Rudy. "We'd hate to lose the sales tax dollar" if the dealer went to the county" but what happens to the $8 million we already are owed," she wonders.

Council members assume that if a big site on 198 or 99 is approved that all the new car dealers will relocate out there. Not so, says dealer Don Groppetti who says he already has some $6 million invested in the facility in east Visalia and more coming. "We have to invest some in expanding the Honda dealership," says Groppetti in the near future and he is currently studying his options.

Groppetti has been consistently skeptical of the highway auto mall option suggesting more business wasn't an automatic on highway 99 "where there are mostly a bunch of trucks" whirling along.

Both Frank Surroz and Tim Razzari think otherwise and suggest their future belongs on highway 99.

Two major problems with the Akers auto mall option are the fact that car display along the scenic corridor is likely to bring out a political reaction that could come home to roost in next year's council election from who don't want the tree-lined entrance to Visalia looking like the Selma Auto Mall.

A second major problem is that siting an auto mall west of the Westlands project will require the cooperation of the County of Tulare to annex it into the city limits. Still some believe that if the city moves forward on annexation to accommodate the dealers that the County will not in the end approve the competing application at 198 and 99 because the dealers could no longer say the city is not cooperating with their needs.

Bob Link says the current situation is that dealers are being offered the two sites - Akers and Plaza - in the city limits and if those sites don't work for them there is always sales tax sharing at 99 and 198, something the city and county have agreed to talk about.

Council member Phil Cox told a joint session with planning commission, where talks of the auto mall dominated the discussion of the west 198 plan, that time was of the essence and feared loss of "millions of dollars we need to pay police officers" in town. Some sixty percent of the sales tax money that comes into the city pays for public safety.

Regarding the fun park, city manager Steve Salomon is reportedly working to come up with a final agreement with the Hanford fun park builders in coming weeks with construction of the center later this year. That would mean at least the little miniature racing cars the kids like to run around the track in will find a home on Akers ad 198.

In the end the choice to locate to a specific site will not be just based on approvals from the jurisdiction but the price of the land. If the dealers wanted a signal from the city council - this mixed signal is about as good as it's going to get. Now maybe they have to apply for a site in the city if the want to take the process to the next level.

Dealers "top choice is 99 and 198 secondly Akers and third Plaza," says a local source. But the order might be reversed for the city council.

Consultant Bob Dowds who works for Westlands Development - who hopes to build the auto mall - says an auto mall consultant he hired last year suggested the 99/198 site was the best site and the dealers agree with that idea. But if the city is going to allow an Akers and 198 site the dealers may accept it. If that were to happen, Westlands would not be paying $150,000 to do an EIR on the 198/99 site, he says.

"The decision by council to allow the Akers site was kind of a surprise," says Dowds who says it's possible the application at 99 and 198 won't move forward if a deal can be struck at Akers. His consultant has suggested that the Plaza Drive location won't work lacking any 99 visibility.

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