New Costco for Fresno now delayed beyond summer. Here’s what’s happening
At a Fresno City Council meeting about 15 months ago, a representative for Costco Wholesale said the company would open a new store — one of its largest ever — at a fresh location in northeast Fresno by this summer.
Today, the 22.4-acre plot of land remains empty. Its owner, Douglas Jensen, said he maintains control of the property at West Herndon Avenue and Riverside Drive.
A list of new and upcoming locations on the Costco website does not include a Fresno store. A Costco spokesperson told The Fresno Bee that the company doesn’t comment on new stores until two or three months before opening.
At the center of the plans: an envisioned 219,000-square-foot warehouse store that would replace Costco’s current 134,000-square-foot building at 4500 W. Shaw Ave. The site would also include a 32-pump gas station and automated car wash. Located diagonally from the Marketplace at El Paseo, the land was previously farmed as a fig orchard but has remained vacant for years.
With future plans unclear, a group of Fresno residents has sued the city to reverse previous approvals and demand the city more thoroughly consider alternative options.
The current lease for the West Shaw Avenue store expires in September, said real estate consultant Tom Mahoney in March 2024. A Costco spokesperson did not answer questions from The Bee about future plans for the project.
What was Fresno’s Costco plan?
City Council unanimously approved Costco’s relocation in April 2024. The finalized plan incorporated several “traffic-calming” measures around the site while regulating the movement of Costco-related trucks and adding accessible parking spaces. The new design included four-way stops at West Spruce and North Hayes avenues, as well as two refuge islands along West Spruce.
These changes came after two councilmembers warned about the potential for traffic congestion, including now-President Mike Karbassi, whose District 2 contains the current and planned Costco locations in northwest Fresno.
“It’s going to be hard for me to support this without any mitigation or traffic calming in place,” he said at the meeting. “My biggest concern out of everything I’ve read is the impact of traffic flow in the area.”
The council delayed its initial vote so company consultants and city officials could provide more information about impacts on the land and traffic.
Karbassi told The Bee in a statement this week that the new Costco location would “preserve and create good paying jobs with benefits in Fresno,” while helping the city “capture a strong tax base and offer expanded services for local consumers.”
According to the plan, Costco would keep 12 gas pumps on West Shaw and work with the landlord there to find a new tenant.
Why some residents want to block Costco?
A group of residents sued the city in May 2024 as the Herndon-Riverside Coalition for Responsible Planning and Development, an unincorporated nonprofit organization. The group aimed to revoke approvals for the new Costco store.
The coalition argued that the project violated the California Environmental Quality Act. Among other points, the group said an environmental impact report for the project did not sufficiently address vehicles’ greenhouse gas emissions or consider feasible alternative locations.
The report listed environmental impacts from vehicular greenhouse gas emissions as “significant and unavoidable,” calling it “infeasible” for Costco to mitigate the number of vehicle miles traveled by shoppers.
“Here’s the Costco. Of course it generates a lot of emissions, and the fact that there’s so very little (greenhouse gas-related) mitigation measures just kind of boggles the mind,” said Babak Naficy, lead counsel for the coalition.
Daniel Brannick, an environmental attorney supporting the coalition, said he is not against a retail company setting up shop on the vacant land, and he recognizes the local demand for a Costco store. For Brannick, alternative locations on Veterans Boulevard could have helped the city reduce safety risks tied to traffic congestion.
Brannick said a ruling in favor of the city would lead to further projects being approved even if they may harm the environment.
“What does that do with our ability to practically do stuff about climate change, emissions reduction?” he said.
Fresno officials support Costco analysis?
Attorneys for Fresno and Costco objected to criticisms of their greenhouse gas-related analyses, with City of Fresno counsel Anthony Taylor saying the city considered factors beyond a single site’s greenhouse gas emissions in determining a location.
“There has to be deference to the city’s analysis,” Taylor said.
Under the environmental impact report for the project, Costco would institute a mandatory Commuter Reduction Program for employees, affecting less than 2% of trips.
An additional technical report concluded that the Costco project would fulfill the city’s overall goals for greenhouse gas reductions.
Anna Shimko, a real estate attorney for the company, defended the city’s analyses of alternative locations. Multiple sites included land that Costco would have to acquire, she said. According to the project’s environmental impact report, one spot championed by the residents would only be accessible through North Riverside Drive, because Veterans Boulevard would block traffic elsewhere.
“The city’s findings are well supported by the evidence and should be upheld,” she said.
This story was originally published June 23, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
