Stanislaus County's West Side alluring location for distribution facilities

Each company announcing plans for logistics centers on Stanislaus County's West Side helps make Gerry Kamilos' case, he says, for a huge industrial hub with 13,000 jobs near Crows Landing.

The encouraging parade of news releases includes substantial distribution facilities in Patterson for CVS Pharmacy and Kohl's in 2006, Grainger in 2010 and the Affinia Group last year, adding more than 2 million square feet of warehousing space and hundreds of jobs. Project X is assumed to be a cover name for Internet retail giant Amazon, which could bring an additional 1 million square feet and 1,500 jobs to Patterson if that deal closes in the near future.

"(The story) isn't, 'We've got this new user going into Patterson.' The real question is, 'What's attracting them to the West Side?' " Kamilos said. "It's the same things we explored and studied four years ago."

Actually, county leaders chose Kamilos and his 4,560-acre West Park vision almost five years ago. He scaled it down by 2,000 acres last year, and his team is compiling critical environmental studies heading for a June hearing.

The global concept relies on proximity to Interstate 5 and a rail link to the Port of Oakland, providing shipping exports to the Far East for Central Valley farmers and Asian imports coming the other way. But that's the really big picture.

From a lower altitude, companies locating here are more concerned with central location related to fuel costs, prompt deliveries within Northern California and being within a day's drive to major centers stretching to Tacoma to the north and San Diego to the south.

Valley wages are less than in the Bay Area, and competitive power rates help too, according to a December logistics report by the Stanislaus Economic Development & Workforce Alliance.

Countering trend toward Nevada

The trend is running counter to three decades ago, when lower costs helped northern Nevada lure tens of millions of square feet in warehouse facilities. It made economic sense to offload imports at the Port of Oakland and truck huge containers to the Sparks-Reno area, where contents were unloaded to delivery trucks and driven back to the valley and Bay Area.

But diesel prices virtually have doubled in the past few years, Nevada's gaming industry has helped drive wages higher and that state's inventory taxes are creeping up. So companies are looking elsewhere, and the Central Valley is attracting a decent share.

"It's true. (Companies) are migrating," said Barry Spraggins, a business professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. His supply chain management program was eliminated in July and three of five faculty were let go.

Meanwhile, seaports remain optimistic.

The Port of Oakland, Kamilos' critical link to Pacific Rim markets, dredged its harbor to accommodate a new superclass of steamships, the largest in the world. At an October congressional hearing, executive director Omar Benjamin bragged about burgeoning exports, "especially for agricultural goods, particularly (from) California's San Joaquin Valley."

Beacon Economics' Jack O'Connell, an international trade expert, said: "Prospects in China and other fast-emerging countries are very robust. They all want quality, nutritional food that is safe to eat, and we grow the kinds of produce these consumers are looking for."

Kamilos said Asian consumers equivalent in numbers to about half of the United States' market are spending on a par with Americans. The Los Angeles Times recently reported that Chinese drivers in 2011 bought more Lamborghinis and Rolls-Royces than anyone else in the world, and said luxury markets are exploding.