Cold storage company buys Westside property
BY ALEX CANTATORE
Staff Reporter
The City of Turlock announced last week that the Westside Industrial Specific Plan, the city’s 2,600 acre shovel-ready industrial park, has secured its first occupant. Vorhees, New Jersey based United States Cold Storage has acquired property to build a 200,000 square foot temperature-controlled warehouse facility on Fransil Lane near West Main Street.
“This is what we hope to be the first of many companies to reap the benefits of Turlock’s multi-year effort to establish the (WISP) area,” said Turlock Mayor John Lazar. “US Cold Storage, with 32 facilities in ten states, is a great example of the caliber of firms we hope to attract to the WISP, providing more job opportunities in our community.”
USCS, a provider of refrigerated storage, distribution, and logistics services since 1889, operates more than 150 million cubic feet of warehouses across the country. The new Turlock facility will join seven existing USCS sites in California, including nearby warehouses in Tracy, Union City, and Fresno.
“Turlock is an ideal location for a full-service USCS warehouse operation. Its location in the heart of the highly productive San Joaquin Valley will put us in a great position to serve customers from throughout the area with specialized storage and logistics programs,” said David Harlan, President and CEO, USCS. “The West Coast, from California to Washington, is an extremely important region for our company.”
USCS is effectively an international company, serving as a wholly owned American subsidiary of the United Kingdom and Hong Kong based Swire Group since an acquisition in 1982. In addition to serving the United States and United Kingdom, Swire operates in Australia and Asia, with new development taking place in Vietnam and Sri Lanka.
When Turlock’s USCS facility opens, tentatively scheduled for July 2009, about 30 full-time employees will work alongside an unnamed number of additional seasonal workers. At full build out the warehouse is expected to encompass 24 million cubic feet of space and be among the largest refrigerated storage facilities in the nation.
The WISP has long been a priority of the Turlock Council City, who has invested almost $15 million in backbone infrastructure to entice nationally recognized companies to do business in Turlock. In addition to the many practical incentives to building in the WISP, including nearby freeway access and ready infrastructure, the industrial park offers substantial tax benefits as a part of the Stanislaus County Enterprise Zone.
Now that all of the proper agreements are in place, the WISP should rapidly begin with visible development. USCS expects to break ground in Turlock as soon as late summer.
“The City of Turlock has helped to make the acquisition and development move along very smoothly, and we are looking forward to being able to open our doors right on schedule,” said Rod Noll, California Area Vice President for USCS.
To contact Alex Cantatore, e-mail acantatore@turlockjournal.com or call 634-9141 ext. 2005.
Originally published in the Turlock Journal 8/6/2008.
Retrieved from the Turlock Journal Web site.