Company constructing cold storage facility in Seguin

Company constructing cold storage facility in Seguin Main Photo

19 May 2021


Manufacturing, SEDC

Dalondo Moultrie The Seguin Gazette

Pretty soon when someone needs to warehouse something on ice in Seguin, they won’t have very far to go to get it done.

That’s because Yukon Ventures, a Texas-based company in the cold storage development industry, recently announced its plans for a project at the intersection of I-10 and State Highway 46 in Seguin. The company looks to meet needs of the quickly-expanding local population and secure its reach beyond, said Marty Khait, managing principal.

“We live in Austin so as you know, the Central Texas population has been absolutely explosive,” he said. “Really, Texas as a state has had a real problem with cold storage for a long time. Across the country there’s very little cold storage. In Texas, it’s a little bit of a bigger problem when you compare state by state availability.”

Yukon Ventures will build the facility, a cold-storage warehouse, and likely find a tenant to operate it, Khait said. That could be a public refrigerator operator, a private company, a processor or manufacturer, he said.

The plan is for Yukon Ventures to build a 170,000-square-foot cold storage facility, and cater to food manufacturers and businesses like that in the region, Seguin Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Josh Schneuker said.

Manufacturers who need some place to cold store their goods will have that ability right here in Seguin, he said.

“There’s a cluster of food manufacturing companies in the San Antonio area, the Austin area,” Schneuker said. “A facility like this in Seguin with our access to Interstate 10, you can head over to Houston, you can go west. This project is going to be situated very nicely to be able to access different markets in a very short amount of time.”

The rapidness with which Seguin is growing causes a growing need for such facilities, he said. With more people comes a need for more food, and a place to store it, Schneuker said.

Cities in Central Texas haven’t seen activity on the cold-storage-facilities front the same as metroplexes like the Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth areas, Schneuker said in the news release announcing Yukon Ventures.

With populations growing in double-digit percentages, and an abundance of new food production facilities, Central Texas cities’ public cold-storage capabilities have changed little over the decades, he said.

“Strategically situated on the I-10 corridor, the project in Seguin will have the unique ability to service both Austin and San Antonio within less than a one-hour drive, and the Houston ports and the U.S.-Mexico border in less than a three-hour drive in either direction,” according to the statement.

Yukon Ventures’ facility will provide storage for 21,000 pallets and 600 blast freezing positions. Leasing opportunities will begin immediately, Schneuker said.

“We’re extremely excited,” Khait said. “I think the city has been incredible for us — the EDC that we’re communicating with, Josh — and we couldn’t be happier with the process.”

The project is scheduled for November completion.

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