Industrial parks and sites are tracts of land specifically set aside for the potential location of more than one business or manufacturing firm.
Industrial parks and sites provide an opportunity for a community to control and sell, on its own terms, a sizable tract of land to industry.
We enable communities to prevent the use of industrial land in ways that are in conflict or are inconsistent with local community values and goals.
Parks and sites also provide the opportunity for planned development in an organized and sequential manner. New businesses continue to settle in the Kamloops area including manufacturing and light industrial.
Additional industrial land will be necessary to service those businesses wishing to locate in the Kamloops area. The WP/CIB is interested in building an industrial park on 100 acres of WP lands.

Industrial Park

Over the past two decades, the activities that make up the industrial sectors of the economy have shifted radically from heavy industries to light or "clean" industries that now dominate industrial locations in most Canadian cities.

These new industries tend to be smaller, frequently require less labour and are not as dependent on proximate sources of raw materials. Instead, these more contemporary industries rely on transportation to move raw materials, in and to ensure that a local and regional distribution system is accessible to the industrial establishment.

One of the major issues with sites and parks, especially those in more sparsely populated rural areas where fully served vacant land is often not available, is the property's marketability. This refers to the level of acceptability and readiness for development of a particular site.

The growth of e-commerce has stimulated a heightened level of construction of state-of-the-art distribution properties throughout North America.

The demand is from retailers and logistics firms who have had to quickly develop processes and markets capable of responding to the buying power of consumers.

Logistics companies looking to get closer to their consumers and save on their occupancy costs, will target industrial markets that are untapped but offer strong transportation amenities. Two major trends for warehouse/ distribution space are:
1) Growing disparity between old and new industrial facilities, creating both a real and perceived sense of warehouse obsolescence, and
2) "New" source of demand for super regional, state-of-the-art warehouse/distribution facilities.

The continued growth of the Kamloops region is attracting industry to the area. Industry needs appropriately zoned and developed land to locate their business. Both the city of Kamloops and the Kamloops Indian Band have recognized the demand for industrial land and both are developing or expanding their industrial parks.

Kamloops and the TNRD are home to more than 170 manufacturing companies. These companies produce goods ranging from value-added wood products to industrial machinery. Almost half of these companies are currently exporting to global markets.

•WPCIB © 2007 •