ESCONDIDO , Plans for a new industrial subdivision in Escondido are moving ahead, with infrastructure construction anticipated to start early next year, an official of the development company said.
Allen Jones, vice president of H.G. Fenton Co. of San Diego, said May 1 completed pads in the 210-acre Quail Hills Industrial Park would probably be ready for buildings in mid-2002.
Before that, a contractor will be blasting and crushing about 2 million cubic yards of rock to make the property usable, he added. About 1 million cubic yards will be sold to lower the cost of development and the remainder used as fill at the site.
“The cost of working in rock and of having to blast and process it is four times the cost of working in dirt,” Jones said. “By selling off a million cubic yards of rock we reduce the price from four times to twice what it would cost if you just pushed ground around with a bulldozer.”
The extensive amount of hard rock work highlights a growing trend in San Diego County, according to one real estate broker.
“There is a coming shortage of industrially zoned vacant land in the county,” said Alan Scott, owner of the Coldwell Banker Commercial franchise in Carlsbad. His agents specialize in North County office and industrial property.
His comments were confirmed by a recent study by the San Diego Association of Governments. In its 2020 Cities/County Forecast on Land Use, the agency said the amount of vacant industrial land is expected to drop from the 10,103 acres that were available in 1995 to 3,876 in 2020, a 62 percent decline.
In contrast, low-density single-family residential land for luxury homes is expected to increase 201 percent over the same time period. However, vacant land for multi-family development is expected to disappear, according to Sandag.
Jones of the Fenton Co. said the purchase escrow negotiated with the 17 landowners who currently own the parcels south of Highway 78 near Vineyard Avenue expired April 28.
Escrow extension agreements went out that same day to all of the sellers, he added.
The Escondido City Council voted April 26 to negotiate a new development agreement on the land. About 100 acres of it will be used for approximately 1 million square feet of industrial buildings. The companies that occupy the buildings will employ about 5,000 people, Jones said.
He didn’t anticipate any construction problems developing from all of the rock excavation. H.G. Fenton developed land with similar terrain at Mission Valley Heights northeast of the intersection of Friars Road and Highway 163.
The company owns 1,300 acres of vacant land in the county and 2.5 million square feet of industrial buildings in the county as well.
