Delegation secured Yellow’s commitment to open in Tracy

In January 1991, Don Simpson, chairman of the Tracy Economic Development Committee, left, met with three officials of Yellow Freight System, Inc. during construction of Yellow’s Tracy Hub and regional headquarters. Meeting with him were, left to right, Gary Norris and Michael Pollard, facility designers, and Nile Glasebrook, Yellow’s vice president for properties.

The whole Yellow Freight facility was almost built in Manteca, but disagreements between officials from Yellow Freight and the City of Manteca about zoning and other issues caused trucking officials to come to Tracy in September 1988 with serious inquiries about buying property.

This is the way the Tracy Press reported on one of the most-unusual aspects of Yellow Freight’s northern California hub’s opening here on July 15, 1991.

It was Tracy’s victory and Manteca’s loss.

The issue in Manteca that turned Yellow freight’s interest toward Tracy was the decision by the majority on the Manteca City Council not to allow Yellow Freight to be located on property south of the Highway 120 zoned Light Industrial.

The Manteca Planning Commission had earlier determined that the city’s general plan required trucking terminals be located on property zoned Heavy Industrial and not Light Industrial. The city council refused to override the planning commission in order to accommodate Yellow Freight’s selection of the Light Industrial-zone property.

It wasn’t long in 1988 that Yellow Freight officials became interested in Tracy property.

In order to further Tracy’s cause, the City of Tracy sent a delegation to Yellow Freight headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City.

The delegation included several members of the City Council, along with City Manager Mike Locke and Don Simpson, chairman of the Tracy Economic Development Committee.

My nephew, Bob Matthews, then general manager of the Tracy Press, also was in the local delegation. I phoned Bob Tuesday morning at his home in Oregon, and he remembered the trip and how important it was to Tracy to become the home of Yellow Freight’s northern California hub.

“Mike Locke was our principal spokesman during meetings with Yellow Freight officials, and he did a great job of outlining Tracy’s readiness to be the home of Yellow Freight.” Bob said. “Mike reported that Tracy had completed the Industrial Specific Plan, and he provided details on infrastructure, financial aspects and truck routes leading to and from the terminal.”

Bob added, “I believe we talked about the Interstate 205 Corridor Plan, too. There were no mysteries for Yellow Freight to worry about. It sealed the deal for Tracy.”

Bob said that members of the Tracy delegation knew that Yellow Freight would not only be an important industry in itself, but also would be an asset in attracting other industries, especially those that use truck transportation in their operations.

Yellow Freight officials reiterated that the Tracy hub would be a break-bulk hub terminal. Truckload shipments of one type of cargo would be unloaded in Tracy and shipped in less-than-carload lots to 11 smaller terminals in northern California. And too, it was possible that less-than-carload lots from the smaller terminals could be shipped to Tracy for consolidation into larger shipments.

In addition to being Yellow Freight’s northern California break-bulk hub terminal, it would also be the company’s northern California regional headquarters, which included company offices, a sales office, clerical facilities and a conference room.”

On Jan. 5, 1989, Nile Glasebrook, Yellow Freight’s vice president for properties, announced that Yellow Freight System, Inc. has selected Tracy as the primary site for the new northern California hub.

Glasebrook, who had become well-known in Tracy, said the company had an option for the site which lies on Pescadero Avenue on the south side of Interstate 205, just east of the MacArthur Drive exit.

“The property is planned for a 312-door facility where bulk freight is received and divided for distribution,” he said. “The initial development would be about half that size, but future development could occur.”

Construction started in January 1990. The first phase included a 159-door loading dock, 150,000 square feet of warehouse space and two-story building for regional offices and a truck-maintenance facility,

About 300 people — dock workers, clerical, truck drivers and others — either were to be hired or transferred from existing Yellow Freight operations, notably the Stockton terminal. The hub, a 24-hour operation, was expected to handle as many as 400 truck trailers per day.

And now, 32 years after it was opened in July 1991, Yellow Freight’s Tracy hub, with the bankruptcy-triggered closing of the entire company, is no more. What use will be made of the abandoned buildings and other facilities on Pescadero Avenue is anybody’s guess.

• Sam Matthews, Tracy Press publisher emeritus, can be reached at 830-4234 or by email at [email protected].

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