BOARD TO HEAR AMAZON CENTER PLAN
Developer in talks to lease site near Gillespie Field
The San Diego County Board of Supervisors will be asked Wednesday to approve the construction of a distribution warehouse near Gillespie Field in El Cajon.
Lee Chesnut, the investor behind the project, says he is negotiating with Amazon to lease the space at the northwest corner of Cuyamaca Street and Weld Boulevard.
The city of El Cajon’s Community Development Department is working with Chesnut Properties on a proposed site plan for the center at 1756 Weld Blvd. The county owns the land, but El Cajon has land use authority, with jurisdiction over things such as approving building plans to ensure they meet state and local codes.
Plans submitted to El Cajon show a 142,746-squarefoot warehouse that will include a 17,000-square-foot office, more than a dozen docking sites, and nearly 970 parking spots. There is a van loading area for 72 spaces west of the warehouse and a “staging area” for 72 vans next to the loading area. The project has not yet been approved by the city.
Amazon is set to open a 3.4-million-square-foot facility in Otay Mesa as soon as this summer, and 1,500 jobs are reportedly coming with it. Commercial Property Executive reported in January that Vantage Point, a 530,950-square-foot logistics and distribution project in Poway, is entirely leased to Amazon.
County Supervisor Joel
Anderson, whose District 2 includes Gillespie Field, sent an email to constituents last week asking them to “sign a petition to let the Board of Supervisors know how you feel about bringing 400 new jobs to East County,” and mentioned Amazon as the business coming to town.
Some Santee residents who live close to the site have been speaking out against the plans for the warehouse. While they acknowledge the land is located in an industrial zone — prior uses included a golf driving range and a cement processing facility — they have deep concerns about traffic and noise.
A required study assessing the amount of noise in the area was done, and Chesnut said, “Our neighbors should rest assured that any noise from our project is below the city’s limits.”
According to documents provided by the city of El Cajon, the proposed delivery station would run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Operations would consist of about 230 delivery vans loading and departing from the delivery station at a rate of 75 vans every 20 minutes between 9:50 a.m. and 11:10 a.m. and returning to the delivery station between 7:10 p.m. and 9:10 p.m.
About 21 line-haul trucks would deliver packages to a delivery station each night, primarily between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. They also say that during the holiday season, peak operation may reach up to 600 vans and 48 trucks in a 24-hour period.
Sixteen-year Santee resident Joe McCormick’s backyard is about 60 yards from where the site plans show hundreds of parking spots for delivery vans along the northwest and west side of the project. He works part time from home and said the thought of the backup beeping sounds that are part and parcel of delivery van activity 24 hours a day will be intolerable for the community.
Many of his neighbors, some of whose homes have a view overlooking the grassy field below, are also upset. On a recent Saturday, several went into their backyards to take in the view and watched a coyote meander while a red-tailed hawk landed in a tree on the property. McCormick said while he was grateful that Chesnut agreed to meet with him and about a dozen neighbors at the property in mid-February, none of his concerns were alleviated. Several of his neighbors say they are writing letters or will be calling into the supervisors’ meeting to express their concerns.
“I can’t stop the project,” McCormick said. “I just want to stop the noise.”
Chesnut says vans would back out of parking spaces at around 9 in the morning, leave the property and return no later than 9 p.m. (10 p.m. in “peak season”) and vans will pull into the parking space — no back-up alarms. He said the vans are not used during the night, so there will not be any noise at all and that “it is a parking lot until the next morning.” McCormick said El Cajon City Councilman Steve Goble wrote him in an email that El Cajon has required the applicant to “investigate alternatives” to backup beepers.
“It did not make (it) a condition of approval that they use an alternative, but that it at least looked into alternatives,” Goble wrote to McCormick.
Goble told McCormick that “as part of the goodfaith effort between the applicant, the city of El Cajon, and adjoining neighbors,” the site plan includes a 6foot cinderblock sound wall with landscaping/foliage and a downward slope along the property’s western edge. Goble said plans also show an 8-foot cinderblock wall at the edge of the loading dock at the side nearest the adjoining neighbors.
El Cajon City Manager Graham Mitchell said the city will not be able to approve the plans until it gets clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA must make a determination of “no hazard to flight safety” related to the expected use of a crane during construction.
“Once we receive this letter, the city will submit an application to the Airport Land Use Commission for a consistency determination,” Mitchell wrote in an email. “This is required for any non-aviation development on airport-owned land. Once we receive the consistency determination from the ALUC, the staff can approve the planning permit and then the building permit. This would likely be by mid- to late March. Grading could potentially begin as early as April.”