Fresno’s North Pointe park continues to grow

Published on 12/26/2014 - 11:10 am

Written by Ben Keller

Crews have started work on a pair of roughly 33,000 square-foot buildings in the North Pointe Business Park in Fresno.As the industrial sector picks back up, North Pointe Business Park follows suit with several new buildings coming for manufacturers as well as service companies to fill.

Since opening its first building in 2006 for then Corporate Express (now Staples), North Pointe has grown to five buildings totaling around 400,000 square feet at the corner of North and Orange avenues in south Fresno.

G3 Development, the development arm of the Parnagian family, which also owns Fowler Packing Co. in Fresno, has now begun construction on its first spec buildings in two years as the company continues its master plan to fill out the 230-acre business park.

Recently, a pair of roughly 33,000 square-foot buildings broke ground in North Pointe along Fortune Avenue and across from its latest 91,000 square-foot Building 3 that opened last summer.

With designs by Los Angeles-based Ware Malcomb and Fresno’s Target Constructors contracted on the project, the buildings are slated for completion in the next six to seven months.

G3 Development’s Director of Marketing Ross Parnagian said each would be suitable for multiple tenants, complete with storefronts and ample parking, loading docks, skylights, spandrel glass and an option for drop ceilings for more office-type tenants.

The slightly smaller Building 22 will feature suites as small as 5,400 square feet while the adjacent Building 23 will have 16,745 square-foot suites or the entire building available.

“We try to cater to kind of a universal layout so it works for everybody,” Parnagian said. “We do as many dock positions as possible for small spaces. Our 5,000 square-foot spaces have access to a drive-up door and two dock doors, which is very unique in our market, so it caters to a small warehouse.”

G3 Development is also planning a 120,000 square-foot warehouse building, dubbed Building 5, and its 94,000 square-foot Building 4, both located at the end of Northpointe Drive in the park.

While rates will vary on the new buildings, Parnagian said monthly rents would generally be more reasonable for larger users.

“With the 5,000 square-foot space, you’re at 55 to 60 cents a foot. If you’re at 20,000 square feet plus, depending on what the build out is or with just shelf space, you’re probably at about 38 to 42 cents a foot,” he said.

With 70 acres already planned or developed in Phase 1 of the park, another 130 acres lies farther south toward Central Avenue where Fowler Packing’s current farming fields will eventually make way for Phase 2 of the development that calls for 12 new buildings, including a 1 million square-foot warehouse ideal for distribution.

But according to Ethan Smith of Pearson Realty in charge of marketing North Pointe to tenants, there’s no reason why those buildings couldn’t be developed now if the right company comes forward needing the space.

“In the past there were some constraints around sewer lines and storm drain lines on Central Canal, but all of that’s been resolved and its really just a matter of the right deal coming along,” Smith said.

Future development will also take place in the dirt fields along North Avenue and Parkway Drive near Highway 99 for another 30 acres.

At full build out, North Pointe Business Park will boast nearly 4 million square feet of industrial space, transforming an area that once was all orchards farmed by the Parnagian family.

“As time goes on, a lot of our farmland gets into the city so it’s got a higher and better use than farmland,” Parnagian said. “With this particular property, about 2000 that happened and it was ready for us to stop farming on it and build buildings and diversify.”

Current tenants at the North Pointe Business Park include LKQ Corp, Amerifresh, Clean Source, Crown Equipment Corp., Orr Safety Corp., Ingram Lightning Source, Advantage Sign & Graphic Solutions and Komatsu Forklift USA. Only two spaces in the park are still vacant.

Besides North Pointe Business Park, G3 Development is also the name behind The Palms at Fowler, a 53-lot custom home community taking shape in Fowler. However, farming still remains the Parnagian family’s core business, just as it was when Sam Parnagian established Fowler Packing in 1950.

Now in its third generation of family owners, the company grows and packs more than seven million boxes of stone fruit and table grapes and 15 million boxes of citrus per year from its farms and three packing houses in the Central Valley.

Fowler Packing currently sells mandarins through a new partnership with Paramount Citrus under the Cuties brand.

North Pointe Business Park isn’t the only industrial complex expanding in the San Joaquin Valley.

Diversified Development Group of Fresno has planned more than 400,000 square feet of spec buildings in the Visalia Industrial Park to add to the more than 7 million square feet of industrial space the company owns throughout the Valley.

One of the largest of which is the North Avenue Industrial Park located at the corner of North and Willow avenues with seven buildings totaling more than 745,000 square feet for light industrial users.

Recently, the company purchased a 12-acre property from the City of Clovis at Villa Avenue and Pelco Way with plans to build a 180,000 square-foot industrial complex on the site.

Fancher Creek Business Park, a partnership of developers Ed Kashian and Tom Richards, has 77 acres of land available at Belmont and Fowler ave