TEJON RANCH WAREHOUSE TIMELY.

Byline: GREGORY J. WILCOX

Tejon Ranch is a long way from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. Even Port Hueneme.

It's 60 miles north along Interstate 5 from Los Angeles and 30 miles the other way from Bakersfield. The Port of Oakland? Another 400 miles up the road.

The closest body of water is Castaic Lake, where personal water craft and bass abound.

This puts Tejon Ranch smack in the middle of a foreign trade zone.

It makes sense to the Tejon Ranch Co. and Rockefeller Group Development Corp.

They've partnered up and started development of a 606,000-square-foot warehouse at the Tejon Industrial Complex.

This is a 1,450-acre master-planned commercial development that's going to be the centerpiece of California's central trade corridor.

This is just a small part of Tejon's holdings. The company owns 270,000 acres, most of it currently used for agribusiness with some planned for residential use.

The commercial part is gaining market muscle, though, with 2.5 million square feet of warehouse space already there.

Swedish giant IKEA's western regional warehouse is going to be the next-door neighbor, and Oneida Ltd's West Coast distribution facility is on site.

Now the partners are in the process of getting the complex recognized as an expansion of the Port of Los Angeles Foreign Trade Zone 202.

"The Rockefeller Group is an organization with a worldwide reputation for quality commercial development, with a demonstrated depth of expertise in the foreign trade zone arena," said Robert A. Stine, president and chief executive officer of Tejon Ranch Co.

Here's why that's important.

Manufacturers and distributors can defer duty payments on imported items or raw materials that are stored in warehouses in these zones until they move out into the commercial distribution chain. Companies can also get authorization from the U.S. Customs Department to move goods right from the port to the zone, thus bypassing time-consuming bottlenecks.

Paperwork is pared down, too. Companies only have to file one customs entry per week versus one per day.

The result is reduced fees, lower inventory levels and cost savings.

The Inland Empire has seen a boom in this kind of construction to help with the movement of goods from the ports to destinations in the east.

This development north of the Santa Clarita Valley provides a link to northern destinations, including the Port of Oakland and Canada.

The Rockefeller Group believes the parts being put in place add up to a strategic location.

"Our studies of imported goods ... moving into the U.S. markets through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach indicate that TIC is uniquely positioned to support the flow of such materials as they move into the marketplace," said Tom McCormick, Rockefeller's senior vice president of development.

With Oakland just up the I-5, all of the state's major ports are within reach.

Sending freight from the ports to outpost holding centers could make crowded freeway conditions worse. That could be reduced by doing most of the freight-hauling at night.

Eduardo Martinez, an economist at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., said that rail lines are nearing capacity.

And there is no letup in the amount of stuff heading our way.

"We're noticing that the flow of trade from Asia into the West Coast is not showing any kind of slowdown. There is a big demand in the U.S. for imported goods, no matter what the politicians say," Martinez said.

greg.wilcox(at)dailynews.com

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