What's at stake?
City leaders say hundreds of new jobs and millions in sales tax revenue are on the line.
A northward move for Costco Wholesale in west Fresno was stalled by the city council on Thursday, after council members criticized the company’s plans to mitigate new traffic.
Costco plans to relocate its current warehouse store on West Shaw Avenue to a lot on West Herndon Avenue and North Riverside Drive after the lease on its current location expires in fall 2025.
The Herndon facility will be over 219,000 square feet and outfitted with a 16-pump gas station. It will also have added services, including a car wash.
The facility needs city council’s approval for a rezone since the car wash doesn’t comply with the city of Fresno’s General Plan for that parcel.
Proponents of the move, including Mayor Jerry Dyer and the Fresno County Economic Development Corporation, said the project will bring hundreds of construction jobs and increase local sales tax revenue.
“The relocation of Costco will provide further convenience for shoppers, added services, and increased revenue to the city of Fresno,” Dyer said while urging the council to support the project.
Critics questioned the environmental impact report’s conclusions about local traffic.
Council Vice President Mike Karbassi, who represents the district where the Costco will be moved, said he couldn’t support the project without city planning department staff coming up with more “traffic-calming measures” for the surrounding roads.
“My goal is to say, ‘Yes, I approve’,” he said. “But I don’t want to make a decision without considering the impact five years from now, 10 years from now. I don’t want … to have a situation where this new Costco becomes like the old one,” which he described as a “cluster.”
Several city residents also questioned how convenient the proposed location even farther north in the city will be for residents of south Fresno.
“I would like to go shopping at Costco again,” said Traci Robertson in comments via Zoom, “but it’s too far. I don’t have a car.”
Councilmember Miguel Arias voiced concerns over what would happen to Costco’s old facility after it’s vacated.
“Are we going to have a fire hazard sitting there for years?” he said.
At the last city council meeting, Arias and others also raised questions about the environmental impacts and particularly new truck traffic that a proposed warehouse headed to southwest Fresno would generate.
The council ultimately approved the project’s environmental impact report and let the project move forward.
The environmental concerns with Costco’s proposed new facility
A draft city council report said the new traffic hazards, construction noise, and more remote location of a newly constructed Costco retail warehouse are “unavoidable.”
The council would “accept certain environmental impacts because to eliminate them would unduly compromise some other important economic, fiscal, environmental, land use or other goal,” the draft report notes.
Costco sells bulk items to paying members, “making walking, biking, or transit trips to the warehouse impractical,” the report notes.
The report also notes increased traffic hazards during construction, particularly at North Golden State Boulevard and West Herndon Avenue, an area already facing High-Speed Rail construction projects.
City documents acknowledge the new site will increase the number of vehicle miles traveled to and from the store.
The project and its benefits “outweigh its unavoidable significant effects,” the draft report says.
Those benefits include hundreds of construction jobs, increased services, and possibly increased convenience for some residents. Additionally, a new pedestrian path would be installed along West Herndon Avenue, and roadway on West Spruce Avenue would be completed.
It wasn’t immediately clear Thursday when the city council plans to revisit the Costco vote.
Council approves new deal with Airbnb
The council also approved a new deal with Airbnb to collect transient occupancy taxes for the City of Fresno. Airbnb is a Delaware-based online platform that connects property owners with renters for short term stays, a business model similar to Uber or Lyft that allows drivers to provide rides for a fee.
City spokesperson Sontaya Rose told Frensoland the city expects to pick up an additional $1 million a year in transient occupancy tax revenue.
City OKs conversion of old Parkside Inn to affordable housing
Fresno City Council greenlit a project to convert the old Parkside Inn Motel from a shelter for unhoused residents to permanent affordable housing. The project includes a $3 million Community Block Development Grant loan with the nonprofit Silvercrest Inc. to acquire the old motel and convert and rehabilitate the property for affordable housing.
Responding to questions from Councilmember Tyler Maxwell, a city official said all residents currently staying at the shelter would be “successfully relocated” and that nobody would be forced back into the streets as a result of the pending construction project.
Airport expansion contracts approved
The council unanimously approved a $3.3 million construction management contract with Hill International, Inc., to oversee a terminal expansion project at the Yosemite International Airport.
The roughly three-year deal to complete the project was approved along with a $1.8 million engineering contract tied to a runway reconstruction project. Airport expansion plans have been in the works for years ahead of expected passenger and traffic increases in the coming decade.
More funding for local LGBTQ+ resource center
The city council approved $100,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funding for the Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission’s LGBTQ+ Resource Center. The money will be used for “operational support costs.”
City documents say the center aims to provide case management services to low-income LGBTQ+ youth and adults in Fresno County with the support of the additional funding.
Councilmember Garry Bredefeld was the lone “no” vote against approving the funding.
Fresnoland senior editor Rob Parsons contributed to this report.
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