Wine warehouse to grow
Vaz Brothers to build 400,000-square-foot structure in Lodi
For more than 25 years, Vaz Brothers Warehousing and Repacking has provided storage and packaging services for a handful of the largest winemakers in the country.
But as the wine industry continues to grow nationwide and Vaz Brothers’ customers begin to expand, their facility also needs to be improved.
The company, which since 1996 has been operating in a 400,000-squarefoot structure at 960 S. Guild Ave., will add an additional 400,000 square feet of space to its footprint.
“We’ll have close to 1 million square feet of space,” managing director Cody Vaz said. “Because if our clients and the people we do business with are expanding and growing, we need to grow in order to meet their needs.”
Vaz Brothers stores wine for four of the largest winemakers in the nation in the temperature-controlled warehouse, as well as uses multiple packing lines, such as glass-to-case packaging, to prepare their clients’ finished products for distribution.
The company broke ground on the expansion project in October, and Vaz said the new structure should be completed by September.
Vaz would not reveal which winemakers store their products at the Guild Avenue facility, but said the site has grown little by little over the years as those clients continue to expand.
“We’ve expanded a bit,” he said. “We’ve been kind of bursting at the seams for a while. It was just time for us to put a foot forward and try to keep up with the demand of the industry, as well as the demand of our customers.”
The Vaz Brothers expansion is one of several industrial projects gathering steam on Lodi’s east side.
At last year’s state of the city address, Lodi City Councilman Mark Chandler, then serving as mayor, discussed the planned commissary project to be located at Guild Avenue and Lockeford Street.
The project, estimated to cost as much as $7 million, will provide an enclosed structure that allows for about 100 food trucks.
Chandler said the commissary will offer the atmosphere of a restaurant, depot and grocery store, all in one location.
A timeline and schedule for the commissary has not been determined.
Tonight, Lodi’s Site Plan and Architectural Review Committee will consider a plan to construct a new 40,000sqaure-foot multi-tenant building located at 1399 East Turner Road,
According to the meeting’s agenda, the project is located between the Lodi Wine and Business Center and Waste Management.