FAA Says Yes to Possible FedEx Facility at Chino Airport
The Federal Aviation Administration has given its nod for a FedEx delivery facility at Chino Airport in San Bernardino County, California.
The project, proposed by Indianapolis-based Scannell Properties, still needs approvals from the city of Chino and San Bernardino County, which owns the airport.
FedEx ranks No. 2 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.
The plans call for a 745,478-square-foot building and four support buildings in an area located southwest of Merrill Avenue and Flight Avenue. The city is looking to hire a consultant to study the environmental impacts of the proposal.
“The county has not taken a position on the use of county land near Chino Airport for a parcel delivery hub facility,” county spokesman David Wert said in a statement. He noted that Scannell hasn’t purchased the land yet and is waiting to hear whether Chino would be amenable to its plans.
“If and when Scannell decides it wants to acquire the property, the Board of Supervisors will be asked to consider the use of the property for this purpose. Until then, this a is matter between Scannell and the city of Chino,” Wert said.
FedEx spokeswoman Nikki Mendicino declined to discuss the specifics of the proposal.
“FedEx continuously evaluates the needs for additional facilities and routinely talks with real estate agents, developers and government officials,” she said in a written statement. “As a matter of policy, FedEx does not publicly discuss specifics of a project until all the details have been finalized.”
Nicholas Liguori, community development director for Chino, said the city was told the project would involve ground freight and no airfreight.
“We need to study this,” Liguori said. “We’re at a very preliminary stage, so I can’t make any assessments to what the impacts will be until we study the project in detail. … It’s a parcel delivery service, so they need more land area for the staging of the trucks and vehicles and things like that. They’re moving goods, so a lot of warehouses store goods in between where they’re coming from and where they’re going, but in this facility, my understanding is they would be constantly moving.”
Given the remaining developable land, the city of Chino is almost at complete buildout of industrial real estate. One of its last major projects is steadily taking shape on 265 acres of former dairy land in the southern part of the city.
The Watson Industrial Park, when complete in 2019 — market permitting — will consist of 11 buildings, 5.1 million square feet of warehousing and industrial office space to the east of Chino Airport. The property is bordered by Flight Avenue to the west, Remington Avenue to the South, Merrill Avenue to the north and Carpenter Avenue to the east.
