Massive E-Commerce Warehouse Pending City Review In San Clemente
San Clemente, CA: Initial development plans have been submitted to the City of San Clemente, requesting a massive e-commerce facility be constructed in the heart of the Rancho San Clemente Business Park. The City of San Clemente’s Planning Commission will review and discuss the proposal tonight at the Wednesday, May 12th, Design Review Subcommittee meeting. It will be conducted via live stream teleconference starting at 4pm. Members of the public can watch here and submit comments here.
The target location is on two of Rancho San Clemente Business Park's last vacant land parcels, situated between Calle Sombra and Calle Cordillera. Sprawling over 20 acres, the industrial facility would measure nearly 98,000 square feet of interior space and tower 45ft high. The proposed site plan has space for 461 vehicle stalls and over 300,000 square feet of outdoor landscaped areas. For comparison, the full location will be about half the size of the entire San Clemente High School campus (including all the sports fields). This will be the largest industrial building in San Clemente, easily out sizing the 24 Hour Fitness property at 100 Avenida La Pata.
With a major lack of warehouse space throughout the region, it’s unusual to see such a large single-property project size on the table for consideration. And not just a lack of inventory, but an actual absence of ANY available industrial vacancy in San Clemente right now. As we reported just two weeks ago, every single industrial space is currently accounted for in San Clemente. The few properties that are still showing up on the public listing services are in escrow, under lease contract negotiation, or simply old and waiting to be removed. After a brutal year of business closures, job loss, and health concerns, a new threat now looms on the horizon. San Clemente is known for its close-knit community and focus on mom-and-pop shopping. Most companies in the Rancho San Clemente Business Park are owned and operated by local residents. These single-location businesses are the lifeblood of the local economy and maintain the friendly small-town vibe that people love. With the antithesis of small business looking to take the last spot for future community expansion, this will have a generational impact on the way San Clemente evolves.
The neighboring buildings in that section of the business park are mostly small to mid-size freestanding industrial properties in the 10,000 square foot range. The subject lots could fit roughly ten new 10,000 square foot freestanding buildings to match the surrounding real estate, allowing almost a dozen local businesses to expand within San Clemente. That possibility is not under consideration now, nor has it ever been seriously entertained by the private owner.
“While there has been a lot of talks about different types of proposals, this is the first actual application that has been submitted to the City to develop the site,” said Stephanie Roxas, Senior Planner at the City of San Clemente,“This is the first actual idea that has come to fruition and has had enough interest to draw up plans and come up with a proposal to develop the site.”
If this proposal moves forward, only a few small lots will remain as the last land in RSCBP. None are large enough for sizable expansion options aimed toward the main community base of local small business. Business owners regularly express frustration at the pressure caused by living in one of the country’s most competitive real estate markets. Will this strike down all hope for a better future to the hundreds of upcoming entrepreneurs dreaming to operate a business in their own backyard? Only time will tell who survives, but the e-commerce boom shows no sign of slowing in its market-gobbling slaughter.
Sitting vacant for decades as the surrounding hills slowly filled in with commercial property and new homes, hope lived on for a community-agreeable business park use. Seeing the contentious battle in the court of public opinion during the development of the Outlets at San Clemente, this subject property owner has been able to fly under the radar until now.
Codenamed “Project Summer” on official documents, a confidentiality agreement restrains City staff members from proclaiming the occupant company. Documentation refers to it generically, calling it an “e-commerce delivery station” that will use fleet automobiles and vans. Rumors and speculation through the real estate brokerage community lead to the same, rather obvious, word: Amazon.
Greenlaw Partners, a commercial real estate acquisition and development company, is listed as the project developer. Multiple calls for comment to Greenlaw were not returned at the time of publication. In 2019, Amazon paid $63 million to acquire the 16-acre site that previously housed the Orange County Register. Pricing has not been disclosed for this proposed 20-acre location in San Clemente.
Located between Calle Sombra and Calle Cordillera, the two vacant lots total over 20 acres of coveted land.
Opinions Not Needed
The land is privately owned and is not controlled by the City. A public hearing is not required to move forward with the project plans. Even the City Council is not obligated to review or approve the plans unless a council member specifically requests to bring the development under council review.
“City Council deputizes our Planning Commission to make decisions on land use and development,” explained Roxas, "I know that applicants, in general, don’t want to go to City Council unnecessarily unless it’s required by the code and at this point in time there’s nothing in their application that is triggering them going to City Council. This is a Planning Commission-level decision."
Several rounds of back-and-forth reviews between City staff and the applicant will take place until both parties feel comfortable with the final proposal details. Roxas anticipates these review negotiations taking at least another three months, as various studies will be required before the project would be approved to move from the entitlement phase into building plan checks and construction drawings, which is a separate months-long process.
Project Summer documents show concept drawings and proposed details for the sprawling e-commerce facility
“One way to reduce the overall time frame, because ultimately that’s what they are most interested in, is breaking ground and getting construction going – they are interested in running those two review processes concurrently so that once they receive their entitlement approval, they won’t be too many months out from breaking ground. They are looking to move this along as quickly as possible,” Roxas shared of the overall process. She continued, “They are probably looking to get construction permits from the City and break ground within six months. They have a very ambitious timeline.”
Height, Highways, and Hiking
The facility’s proposed 45-foot building height is ten feet over the regulation 35-foot limit in the business park. “Administrative adjustments allow staff to have a little bit of wiggle room to allow for very specific deviations from our code for very specific reasons. That’s something we are going to be reviewing as the application process continues to play out. I am asking them to be able to justify that request,” said Roxas, “That’s not something San Clemente normally does. At the same time, we do think this is a very good project that’s very appropriate for this location.”
Another major component of this last-mile delivery center will be the deliveries. These shipments will be completed by a myriad fleet of vans, hundreds and hundreds of vans to be exact. The plans show 90 vans fit into a tight lineup in the loading and staging area just outside the building's industrial loading doors. For those not on the active flight line, the parking lot boasts 339 stalls dedicated to van storage only. Pre-boxed packages will be brought in on tractor-trailer trucks and unloaded through the warehouse’s nine dock-high loading doors. These items will be sorted and moved to the vans waiting on the other side of the building. In total, the premises could have up to 20 commercial loading doors for moving inventory in and out.
The expansive parking lot and vehicle staging areas dwarf the size of the nearly 100,000 square foot building footprint. This will be the largest industrial building in San Clemente by a wide margin.
A traffic study analysis will be reviewed by the City’s engineers to understand how the surrounding roads would be affected by the anticipated vehicle volume. So far, the focus is on the intersections and streets in the immediate vicinity of the proposed location in the Rancho San Clemente Business Park. Roxas confirmed that more details are needed but at this time there is not an anticipation of traffic increasing down Avenida Pico, with no projected disruption or safety concerns to the operation and commuter flow at San Clemente High School. If the engineering team does find evidence of a potential impact for Pico transit, mitigation measures would be required to be provided by the applicant.
Roxas is also interested in maintaining connectivity and access to the entire Rancho San Clemente Trail system. She is recommending Amazon provide a public access point to the trail from Calle Sombra to ensure this great community benefit is not lost. The initial development proposal lacks details in this area. The City of San Clemente will request more information on these specific items, including asking for renderings to clarify what the public-facing views from the trails will look like.
Labeled “San Clemente Flat Track” on Google Maps, the unofficial racetrack is on private property and is supposed to be off limits for public use.
Restricted Recreation
Large, flat, open space is such a rarity in South OC that the two lots have been turned into an unofficial, and illegal, racetrack. Popular with dirt bike riders and off-road vehicles, only a few small “No Trespassing” signs stand in the way of access. Without fencing or enforcement, the land shows well-worn tire tracks forming a circuit around the outer perimeter from many repetitions. A Google Maps location has even been created, naming it the “San Clemente Flat Track”, although it only earned a 2.3-star average review. First appearing on Google Earth images from 2005, the double-loop track outline has remained largely the same until now. The Rancho San Clemente Trail, leading to Knob Hill, connects from Calle Sombra via a small switchback through the property. Paramotorists are known to frequent the spot for paraglider take-offs and landings, enjoying the obstacle-free skylines in all directions.
Google Earth images from 2005 show the site has a long history with off-road vehicles and recreational visitors.
Two-Day Shipping Too Slow?
Amazon has been snatching up locations rapidly in Southern California throughout the last year. Since 2020, seven new Amazon facilities have opened in Orange County, with double-digit openings in Los Angeles County, plus another handful of new facilities in the Inland Empire. The Orange County Register recently reported that Amazon tripled their SoCal locations, adding 23 new properties since the end of 2019. Bloomberg shared Amazon’s plans to add 1,000 to 1,500 delivery hub locations across the United States. In the same Bloomberg report, it states, “A typical hub can generate more than 1,000 vehicle trips each day, often in areas where roads are already congested.”
The southern-most delivery center in Orange County opened last year in Mission Viejo, replacing the “RV Storage Depot” on Jeronimo Road. A press release announcing the news on the City of Mission Viejo’s website received a majority of negative comments online.
Roxas confirmed no special incentives or financial breaks were offered to the applicant from the City, and that the large size of the undeveloped land was incentive enough for the e-commerce user. No information has been shared regarding the employment projections or how many jobs would be sourced locally from the total occupancy.
Gift Order Or Return To Sender?
What are your thoughts on this pending development? Will a rising tide raise all ships or will the surrounding small businesses wilt in the literal shadow of the behemoth on the hill?
Send this to your friends and neighbors and leave a comment below. Don’t forget to tune in for tonight’s meeting and submit your thoughts to the City’s agenda for discussion.
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