Arctic Cold was the hot topic of discussion during a recent Santa Barbara County Planning Commission meeting. Commissioners spent the majority of the four-hour hearing, held on March 9, talking about the proposed agricultural facility before unanimously approving the project.
David Swenk, representing the planned Arctic Cold development, said it will encompass approximately 449,248 square feet and be located on Betteravia Road, just a mile east of Santa Maria, outside city limits.
Swenk described the produce freezer and processing site as “a state of the art facility” that will offer unique opportunities to local farmers, compared to other agricultural processors in Santa Barbara County.
“Arctic Cold is a much different facility than we’re used to in the county,” Swenk said during the March 9 meeting. “We have a lot of processors in this area, but this is a cold storage facility.”
Agricultural processing at the site will be limited to the slicing, dicing, and freezing of produce, according to the Planning Commission’s staff report. Approximately 127,546 square feet of the facility will be used for processing operations, while freezer operations will take up about 321,702 square feet.
The staff report also stated that the processing side of the site will operate primarily during harvest season, from May to August, while receiving produce from local and regional growers. The site’s cold distribution warehouse will receive product year-round for temporary storage before being delivered to clients across the country.
According to Swenk’s presentation on the Arctic Cold project, the new site would benefit local farmers who would otherwise have to ship their produce to alternative cold storage facilities outside Santa Barbara County.
All five commissioners expressed their mutual support of the project, but Planning Commission Chair Michael Cooney added that his vote would ultimately depend on the stance of one commissioner in particular, Larry Ferini.
“Commissioner Ferini, if you are in favor of this project, all things said, I’m going to cast my vote with you,” Cooney said. “Similar to a baseball team, you figure out who the best players are for a given project … . He [Ferini] not only lives and works right alongside the applicants, but he’s thoughtful about the best way to develop ag-related services, which this is.”
Ferini owns Rancho Laguna Farms in the Santa Maria Valley, located on Betteravia, the same road as the planned Arctic Cold site.
The commissioner described Arctic Cold as a “top operator” and said he believes the new development would efficiently support the local agriculture industry, shortly before a 5-0 vote sealed the project’s approval.
This article appears in Mar 17-24, 2022.
