Tejon Ranch’s first residential project may be its boldest: rentals next to its outlets center
The first residential project to come out of Tejon Ranch Co. won’t be its grandest — certainly not by scale or price point. But the apartment complex slated to break ground next month may well turn out to be the company’s most audacious of all.
If fully built out at 495 studio, one- and two-bedroom units, Terra Vista at Tejon would be the largest rental community in all of Kern. It would also become one of the county’s most remote, situated next to the Outlets at Tejon, a drive of at least 20 minutes from the nearest supermarket.
Even bolder is the reason behind the development: Employers at the booming Tejon Ranch Commerce Center will require more workers, preferably living nearby to minimize commuting times and air-quality impacts.
Thousands of single-family homes Tejon Ranch has proposed just south of the outlets are also aimed at serving that need, but they aren’t close to beginning construction.
Perhaps the project’s most novel aspect is the very idea of building affordable but nonsubsidized multifamily residential. The region needs more housing, to be sure, but one reason why there’s not more is because projects like Terra Vista can
be hard to develop, especially if the idea is to keep rents within the reach of families whose livelihoods revolve around the kind of retail and logistics employment available at TRCC.
Tejon Ranch Co. is undeterred. The Lebec-based agribusiness and real estate developer, whose shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange, stated Terra Vista will “complete the well-rounded progression of the company to a fully integrated real estate development organization.”
A news release the company issued Tuesday said
the project’s first phase will begin with 228 rental units. There will be a clubhouse, spa, fitness facilities, outdoor areas for playing and entertaining, a large park area for hosting gatherings, a tot lot, and a dog park. The first units are expected to be available for rental in the first half of 2025.
The project is on a vastly different scale than Tejon Ranch’s three other residential projects, all of them master-planned communities, none of whose development timetables have been announced.
One is Grapevine, a 12,000-home project at the bottom of The Grapevine. Another, Mountain Village at Tejon Ranch, would have 3,450 homes, 750 hotel rooms and 160,000 square feet of commercial space on the east side of I-5 near Frazier Park. The third, Centennial, would put 19,333 residential units and 10.1 million square feet of commercial space near Highway 138 and I-5.
Plans for Terra Vista have
changed over time, in that the project was supposed to be co-developed by Majestic Realty, the large, mostly commercial developer based in the City of Industry. As of about two years ago, the plan was to open the apartments by the end of this year.
Majestic did not respond to a request for comment, but Executive Vice President Hugh McMahon at Tejon Ranch said the two companies — which he noted continue to partner on distribution-center projects at TRCC — were unable to come to terms.
“It just didn’t work out for us,” McMahon said. He added that, with regard to the project’s delay, “It took us time to do this right. We put a lot of effort into making sure we were putting a project together that was going to work for this market.”
Bakersfield multifamily real estate specialist Mark Thurston said Wednesday Tejon Ranch faces no easy task managing the apartment
project’s construction costs, given that others have tried do so only as a longterm investment because it takes so long to recover costs and turn a profit. His guess was that Terra Vista could amount to a “loss leader” for Tejon Ranch.
The lack of usual nearby amenities, such as dry cleaners, struck Thurston as unexpected.
“It’s a bold move to locate a building, you know, far away from grocery stores — but what a great opportunity for their employees who are working in the immediate area,” Thurston said.
Executive Director Stephen Pelz of the Housing Authority of the County of Kern was just glad to see a company helping meet the housing needs of its projects’ workforce.
Every new housing development plays an important role in helping resolve the shortage of rental housing in Kern, Pelz said. It will attract workers to TRCC and help them save money on transportation costs, he said, adding that, “at some point, the grocery and other services will follow the rooftops.”
For its part, Tejon Ranch said it expects to open a grocery concurrent with the first-phase debut of Terra Vista — inside the outlets’ food court.
The company noted that construction costs have been trending downward for months, and that it expects to maintain high-quality development standards at the complex, which it predicted will be a source of longterm, recurring revenue.
McMahon said rents at Terra Vista will be comparable to those found in Bakersfield’s apartment market, which he noted could use the added inventory.
“It’s a very tight market for apartments in Bakersfield,” he said. “We’re going to bring this project online, giving (tenants) what they need, what they want and we’re going to do it in a way that’s attainable for them and ultimately convenient for them.”