Massive planned Napa Valley warehouse project faces challenge
One of the North Bay’s largest planned warehouse projects has encountered opposition from a neighboring city and from environmental advocates and regulators.
The American Canyon City Council voted to continue the public hearing on the 208-acre Giovannoni Logistics Center project to March 21 after hearing concerns from the city of Vallejo about water supply, the Napa Valley Register reported.
One of Vallejo’s city attorneys asserted to the council Feb. 22 that the project environmental impact report makes assumptions that haven’t been resolved in the legal water battle between the two cities.
American Canyon took Vallejo to court last year after the Solano County city contemplated cutbacks in how much water the southern Napa County city would get under a 26-year-old agreement, the paper reported.
American Canyon staff’s report to the council was that the project water supply assessment suggests it will use 133.3 acre-feet less per year over the next 20 years. The city updated its water-supply plan in January, from the previous version in 2020.
The Giovannoni project would be even larger than the massive Napa Logistics Park recently completed just to the north, also in American Canyon. It would cost about $400 million to build and employ roughly 2,000 at completion, the news outlet reported.
The Giovannoni project, being developed by Buzz Oates Companies of Sacramento, would build three food and beverage industry–oriented warehouses with 2.4 million square feet on 163 acres, leaving 45 acres for open space and wetlands. Phase 1 would have two “high-cube” warehouses, according to city documents. Such warehouses typically have a “clear height” of 42 feet, the height under which product can be stacked.
What is coming back before the City Council is certifying the project EIR and approving the water assessment as well as the design permit and tentative parcel map for phase 1: 1.07 million square feet on 70.2 acres.
Phase 2 is envisioned to be a 1.3 million-square-foot high-cube warehouse on 113.1 acres.
If built, it could be larger than the 1.23 million-square-foot warehouse set for completion this summer at the Midway Commerce Center project in Vacaville in northern Solano County.
The Center for Biological Diversity, an Arizona-based environmental legal defense group that also successfully opposed the Walt Ranch vineyard project in Napa Valley, submitted a comment letter on the Giovannoni project suggested it “will be required to pursue legal remedies” if the project were approved, the newspaper reported.
Jeff Quackenbush covers wine, construction and real estate. Before coming to the Business Journal in 1999, he wrote for Bay City News Service in San Francisco. Reach him at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4256.
