Biggest-ever Costco club slated for Fresno, California

Costco Wholesale plans to build its largest warehouse club yet in Fresno, California.

Dubbed the “Fresno Costco Commercial Center Project,” the proposed new club is now under public review by the City of Fresno. According to the city’s draft environment impact report, the store would sit on a 22.4-acre parcel at the intersection of West Herndon Avenue and North Riverside Boulevard and measure 241,342 square feet.

No timetable was given for the new Costco’s construction and expected opening. It would replace a 134,000-square-foot club at 4500 West Shaw Ave. in Fresno that has operated since 1985.

Currently, Costco’s biggest club—in the United States and internationally—is a 235,000-square-foot store at 1818 S. 300 West in Salt Lake City that opened in 1994 and received a 70,000-square-foot expansion in 2015.

In the main warehouse building for the new Fresno location, a 24,000-square-foot area is earmarked for storage and receiving. The sales floor would feature a tire center, optical center, hearing aid center, a pharmacy, foodservice, and meat, bakery and beer/wine/spirits departments.

Also, the club’s southwest portion would house a 47,000-square-foot, relocated market delivery operation (MDO) for receiving, storing and loading big and bulky items for Costco’s home delivery service. At MDO facilities, large goods are dropped off, sorted and loaded for daily deliveries to Costco members.

The club property, too, will include a 13,000-square-foot, canopied Costco gas station with an adjacent 4,800-square-foot automated car wash. Four fueling islands each would have four two-sided pumps, with eight cars able to be served at each island, for a total of 32 fueling positions. The gas station would also have eight stacking lanes, enabling about 40 cars to wait for pumps.

The Fresno Bee reported that the planned new Fresno club was envisioned as a smaller project, citing 2021 city documents that said Costco had proposed a 178,000-square-foot store—meaning the latest iteration of the upcoming club would be over 35% bigger.

For the fiscal year to date through the third quarter, Issaquah, Washington-based Costco opened 17 clubs, including three relocations.

“We have nine new buildings planned for our fiscal fourth quarter. That includes our north Tulsa, Oklahoma, opening this morning [May 25] and our fourth and fifth buildings in China, planned for June and August,” Costco Chief Financial Officer Galanti told analysts in a conference call on Q3 results. “These Q4 planned openings will bring our full-year count to 26, or net of 23 [excluding relocations]. And that is made up of 13 in the U.S. and 10 outside of the U.S.”
Through early July, Costco operated 855 warehouse clubs, inlcuding 587 in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, 107 in Canada, 40 in Mexico, 32 in Japan, 29 in the United Kingdom, 18 in Korea, 15 in Australia, 14 in Taiwan, four each in China and Spain, two in France, and one each in Iceland, New Zealand and Sweden.