Central Site Gets Goods to 30 Million Residents

SHAFTER, CA—Ross Stores Inc. has negotiated more than 1 million square feet of industrial space at 4100 Express Ave. in Wonderful Industrial Park, a fully entitled 1,625-acre distribution center, according to Wonderful Real Estate Development. Ross has been an occupant of Wonderful Industrial Park since 2014 and currently owns a 1.7-million-square-foot distribution center located near 4100 Express Ave.

“We’re very pleased that Ross Stores chose Wonderful Industrial Park for its expansion,” said Joe Vargas, president of Wonderful Real Estate Development. “Speed to market has been the biggest appeal for our tenants, whether it is big retail operators like Ross and Target or companies like American Tire Distributors, Baker Hughes, i.e., oil and gas industry, or Formica, i.e. construction materials. Any industrial parts or materials manufacturer or consumer goods distributor doing business in California needs a central location to reach its customers with same-day or next-day deliveries and that has been our advantage.”

Wonderful Industrial Park is an industrial development entitled for 26 million square feet with 7.6 million square feet of completed buildings. Wonderful Real Estate is currently in the design process for its next 1 million-square-foot project, 4500 Express Ave., located just east of 4100 Express. The building is scheduled for completion in fourth quarter 2019.

The park is also home to several corporate industrial users including Target, American Tire Distributors, Essendant, DMSI, MRC Global and Formica. The park features an onsite rail yard with more than 17,000 feet of track able to accommodate unit trains with direct access to Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway’s mainline. Wonderful is equipped with a high-speed fiber optics network with 10 gigabytes at a capacity of 40 gigabytes.

In addition, Wonderful Industrial Park just began operations of a container exchange program that allows the area’s importers to post inbound containers that can be then be reserved and backfilled by the area’s numerous exports, particularly the abundant agriculture products that are produced by the Wonderful Company.

The park has a strong labor pool within minutes of the facility. Companies located at the industrial park have consistently experienced reliable labor with annual turnover rates in the mid-single digits.

Additionally, companies located at the industrial park have found the import process from the Ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach to Shafter to run most efficiently with the large sites there, allowing trailer and equipment parking along with management. Labor, coupled with ample land to manage import equipment, gives Wonderful Industrial Park high marks in the current logistics environment.

The park’s central location in the state gives companies access to a strong transportation infrastructure. The property is near Highway 99, Interstate 5 and Highway 58, and offers access to the Port of Los Angeles, the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Oakland. The industrial park’s location allows access to 14% of the US population within 300 miles and same-day delivery to 30 million Californians. It has a FedEx Ground hub onsite and is near a UPS ground hub in Bakersfield, CA with Meadows Field Airport located only seven miles away.

Shafter is 18 miles north of Bakersfield on CA-99 in California’s Central Valley, which stretches from Bakersfield in the south to Sacramento in the north. The Central Valley is a 185-million-square-foot industrial market.

The Central Valley accounts for 8% of US agricultural output. In addition to farming, the Central Valley supports more than 1,650 food and beverage manufacturing operations that drive demand for logistics real estate, GlobeSt.com learns.

Beyond agriculture, the Central Valley is emerging as a center for big-box retail and industrial warehouses. The northern part of the Central Valley is within a two-hour drive of the Bay Area’s high-income population, making it well situated as a hub for distributors, including e-commerce companies.

About 50 miles from the Port of Oakland, the northern part of the Central Valley is an important hub for regional distribution. The region is an extension of a global logistics supply chain infrastructure directly linked to West Coast ports in Oakland/Stockton, Los Angeles/Long Beach, Portland, OR and Seattle/Tacoma. The Central Valley has access to interstate highways, running on both a north-south and east-west axis. These roadways facilitate distribution of agricultural products, consumer packaged goods, and manufacturing up and down the West Coast and throughout the northwestern United States.