The Fulton Industrial area, just outside of Calgary’s southeast city limits, is emerging as an attractive option for medium and large format industrial and commercial businesses looking for land position in the region.
And more companies are discovering the benefits of the strategic location with its close proximity to the City's work force, the regional transportation network and its low operating costs.
“It offers all of the cost advantages of Rocky View County along with excellent proximity to the fastest growing residential areas in Calgary. The City of Calgary population within about 10mins of Fulton is twice the size of Red Deer," says Brad Chorley, partner with Resland Development Group which is managing the development. "At the outset it should appeal to large and medium-size industrial businesses with yard requirements, but as southeast Calgary continues to expand the location will be well positioned to start competing for distribution-format users and more commercially oriented development. Highway 22x is a primary corridor for commercial transportation into and out of Calgary."
“Resland has been developing land in Alberta for over 30 years. One of the market forces it has focused on since the late 90s is the increasing cost and complexity of operating industrial businesses within Alberta’s major cities. Resland has managed a number of industrial developments in rural counties just outside large Alberta cities designed to offer cost competitive options to industrial businesses while maintaining good access to primary markets.”
Lower Costs and Accessible Transportation
Fulton Industrial area, located in the Indus area just east of the ring road, is fundamentally similar to other industrial parks just outside Calgary and Edmonton city limits - such as: Balzac, Shepard, Conrich, Acheson, Nisku, Leduc, etc.
These parks offer lower land costs, lower property taxes, no business taxes, no municipal franchise fees on utilities, less municipal bureaucracy and regulation and good access to city and regional transportation.
Fulton has a high standard of infrastructure design, with 11.5-metre wide paved roads, fibre optic communication, urban road design with curbs instead of roadside ditches, and centralized stormwater collection.
Fulton Industrial area comprises 525 acres with 80 acres already developed. Price per acre starts at $350,000 for developed land with flexible lot sizes ranging from 2.5 acres to 100-plus acre sites.
The park has excellent transportation access to the Ring Road, Glenmore Trail, Highway 1 and Highway 22x and it fronts Highway 22x and the CP Rail Line.
Highway 22x A Busy Corridor
Jon Mook, executive vice president with Barclay Street Real Estate which is marketing the property, says one of the biggest attributes of Fulton Industrial Park is that it is fronting onto the busy Highway 22x.
“22x has the most commercial truck traffic of any east/west road coming in or out of Calgary and is second only to Highway 2 for commercial traffic in/out of Calgary. It’s easy access into the city,” he says. “Location is a benefit in terms of where it’s situated and at the same time you have substantially lower property taxes and really the value is you’re getting it for half the price of being in the city". With the completion of the southwest portion of the Calgary Ring Road, Hwy 22x is expected to become an increasingly strategic commercial transportation route.
“Another advantage that the Fulton Park has which is becoming increasingly challenging in the City is it has fibre optic cable running down every road. A lot of the industrial parks in the city say they have fibre but the majority of the time they’re not in front of a site and we’re running into it all the time now where it’s $20,000, $30,000, $50,000 to get fibre into a building because it’s a block away or it’s on the next street.”
There’s a lot of synergies as well to the location as it’s only about 10 minutes from anything in the south east Calgary industrial areas and only about 10 minutes from south east Calgary residential communities.
“We’re very attractive to those guys who have large equipment and don’t want to be tied up on the light issues and the height standards when you get in the city. They can be outside and access in and out of the city via the Ring Road or Deerfoot or Glenmore,” says Mook.
“We also don’t have a building commitment. So if you want to buy land and you need some time before you want to build, in the city there’s very defined building commitments on all the city parks. When you come outside the city, our park does not force your hand. If you want to buy land with a plan to build in two years versus tomorrow or in three, four years, we don’t have a building commitment. If you want to use it as a lay down yard for pipe, you can do that. In the city you cannot.”