Developer to Submit Plans for Fry’s Store Reuse

Rendering of Northgate Industrial Park presented to the North Natomas Community Coalition earlier this month.

BY BRANDY TUZON BOYD
THE NATOMAS BUZZ | @natomasbuzz

Plans are being submitted today for a new 260,000 square-foot industrial park that will replace the former Fry’s Electronics store on Northgate Boulevard.

The project proposal represents an approximate $25 million dollar investment in Natomas and is projected to generate between 350 to 425 jobs, Vice Mayor Angelique Ashby announced this morning on social media.

“This exciting proposal and much needed investment, will revitalize a long vacant site,” Ashby wrote. “The project proponents hope to begin construction later this year or early 2023.”

Land use attorney Ryan Hooper with Thatch & Hooper is expected to submit the plans for Northgate Industrial Park to the city of Sacramento today on behalf of his client LaTerra Development, a family-owned real estate development company based in Los Angeles.

“(LaTerra) plans to make great improvements and long term investment,” Hooper told members of North Natomas Community Coalition earlier this month.

Project architect Jeff Leonhardt said the existing building will be redesigned and modernized, and a second building constructed on the site in place of some parking on the 10-acre site.

Plans for Northgate Industrial Park shared with the North Natomas Community Coalition earlier this month.

“We are trying to minimize things that are hard to change about the existing building,” he said. “We see this as a great reuse and rehabilitation project.’

The rotunda on the existing building will be removed and the wall filled in to create more usable space, he said. Both buildings will be single stories tall with truck loading facilities and the outer edge of the site will not be changed except for the addition of some drive aisles.

“The existing building will have 18 dock doors and the new building will have 20 dock doors,” Leonhardt told the coalition, adding that none of the truck docks will face or be visible from Northgate Boulevard.

Leonhardt said the plan is to keep all the frontage trees and use the existing Tandy Drive entrance off Northgate Boulevard. A traffic study will be conducted and driveways “tweaked” as necessary, he said.

The buildings will be flexible for the size of the tenants. As planned, the existing building could be divided into two tenants or kept as one. The new building can be a multi-tenant building and accommodate up to eight separate tenants, with each having functional use of doors and truck traffic, Leonhardt said.

“This light industrial style complex is in high demand for businesses across Sacramento, particularly for manufacturing, technology, labs and fabrication,” Ashby wrote. “We welcome the investment and look forward to adding a new modern business park to an important business corridor.”

The project is similar to one proposed a year ago by Southern California-based commercial real estate company Cruzan Co.

After months of dwindling stock on its shelves and a temporary closure following looting in June 2020, the Fry’s location in Natomas appeared permanently closed in December 2020 when signage was removed from the building. Two months later, on Feb. 24, 2021 Fry’s Electronics announced it would shutter all of its locations permanently “as a result of changes in the retail industry and the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The 4100 Northgate Boulevard property is valued at nearly $12.5 million, according to Sacramento County property tax records.