A gigantic cold storage and ag processing facility east of Santa Maria earned approval from the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission on Wednesday.
The panel voted 5-0 to approve several matters, including certification of the environmental impact report, for the Arctic Cold Agricultural Freezer and Processor at 1750 E. Betteravia Road, a mile east of the city limits.
Commissioner Larry Ferini said the project would benefit the local berry business.
“The need is there, so we’re not sending the stuff off site and causing more traffic, so we will benefit from efficiency,” he said.
The 449,248-square-foot facility would include processing, cooler, dry storage/warehousing, administrative and maintenance space for the processing operations.
Two-thirds of the facility, or about 321,702 square feet, would be for freezer operations.
The proposal also included 530 parking spaces for year-round and seasonal workers.
Produce processing would be limited to the slicing, dicing and freezing of product, most likely strawberries.
“Arctic Cold is a much different facility than we’re used to here in the county,” David Swenk of Urban Planning Concepts said. “We have a lot of processors in this area, but this is a cold storage facility.”
While coolers kept fruits and vegetables cold for a day or so before being shipped to other markets, the freezer would allow storage at below zero for up to 18 months.
“We can basically ration this out as it’s needed to different areas of the country throughout the year,” Arctic Cold’s Tim Dayton said.
He said Arctic Cold’s facility on East Betteravia Road would double the cold storage capability in the Santa Maria Valley and give local farmers other buyers such as Smucker’s, Sunkist, Pictsweet and Titan.
The business would have more than 300 employees and most likely generate $34 million in sales.
Plans include widening East Betteravia Road to provide turn lanes into the site, plus a bike lane.
Discussions among planning commissioners, the applicant and staff centered on traffic, driveway widths and bike paths.
“The bike lane helps, the shoulder helps, everything here just supports the large vehicles, and I think we’re pretty confident that we won’t see an issue out here,” said Will Robertson of the Public Works Department’s Transportation Division.
Fisher Construction was listed as the project applicant on behalf of AFP LLC and Great 1031.
Other discussions involved water, greenhouse gasses and re-abandonment of old oil wells on the site.
Analysis determined the water use for the facility would be much less than growing row crops at the site, a representative said.
“We do feel comfortable that it’s conditioned pretty strongly to require water or the project will not happen,” said Travis Seawards, deputy director of the Development Review Division.
“Require water permitted by all the applicable authorities?” chair C. Michael Cooney asked.
“Correct,” Seawards answered.
Arctic’s new cooler would sit near two other ag facilities — Mid-Coast Cooling and Central Coast Cooling — along with ag fields.
Ferini said he has learned that the berry business is the valley’s fastest-growing crop in terms of acreage and value, especially as growers get displaced from Oxnard and Salinas.
Jon Larsen from Titan Frozen Fruit on La Brea Avenue in the city limits said California grows 2.4 billion pounds of strawberries with 80% sold as fresh fruit and 20% to processing markets.
Of that 20% for processing, more than half comes from the Santa Maria area, Larsen added.
Only Titan and SureFresh, which mostly does vegetables and some strawberries in Santa Maria, focus on processing in the Santa Maria area.
“We’re totally at capacity currently in our Santa Maria facility,” Larsen said, adding that “a lot of fruit” is being trucked out of the area for processing.
“Our intent is to be able to capture a lot more of that local Santa Maria fruit, which is good for our business and it’s good for the environment,” he said, adding that it would less truck to out-of-town processing facilities.
— Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.