New AutoZone opens in Livingston, fuels city’s future growth plans

The city’s motto may be “The Last Stop,” but city leaders are pushing to make Livingston the first stop for business growth, starting with a new AutoZone store that opened its doors this week.

Mayor Rodrigo Espinoza got a little choked up talking about the new retail business during a ribbon-cutting on Tuesday, saying the project has been in the works since 2006. The store added 10 new jobs to the economy when it opened Saturday.

AutoZone is the first of three stores coming to the B Street and Winton Parkway shopping center. CVS Pharmacy and Rancho San Miguel will open in a few months, with the 55,000-square-foot supermarket expected to employ 130 people. Less than a mile down the road, a Motel 6 is set to open within a year.

“It’s pretty emotional. I’ve been waiting a long time,” Espinoza said Tuesday. “I’m just happy for the community. It’s kind of hard for this little town on the north side of Merced County – Atwater and Merced seem to be getting all the businesses.”

Atwater and Merced also seem to be weathering the economic downturn better than Livingston. The city’s unemployment rate is nearly two percentage points higher than its neighbors: 14.3 percent in November, compared to 12.5 percent in Atwater and 12.1 percent in Merced.

Both Atwater and Merced have either reduced or deferred developer fees in an effort to attract new businesses, but Espinoza said Livingston also offers incentives to appeal to developers. For example, waiving certain fees brought TravelCenters of America to Livingston a few years ago, and the city’s been reaping $350,000 in annual tax revenue since then.

To that end, both Espinoza and Mayor Pro Tem Gurpal Samra say they oppose a recent proposal from the city’s planning director to raise fees on permits and other items in an effort to recover administrative and staffing costs.

“This is the wrong time,” Samra said, standing in front of the AutoZone on Tuesday. “I understand the city has costs, but what’s the use of raising fees if no one will come in and act on them?”

Livingston city officials are still reeling after the city missed out on 400 jobs when Wal-Mart decided to open a store in Atwater instead. The mayor said Livingston lost the giant retailer in 2008 because city officials kept increasing various fees.

“Every time they came to the city, the fees were going up and they were pushed out,” Espinoza said. “It’s kind of sad it was due to politics that it didn’t go through.”

Longtime Planning Commissioner Warren Urnberg said interest from large retailers waned after the Wal-Mart proposal fell through. “After Wal-Mart, there were no other big-box stores coming to Livingston,” he said. “We lost jobs and revenue.”

Even though Livingston has two other auto parts retailers – Napa and O’Reilly Auto Parts – Urnberg said any new business is a win for the city. Livingston has plenty of land ripe for developing, Urnberg said, and just needs commercial developers to take notice.

The city’s growth plans have been limited because Livingston doesn’t have an updated general plan. The city adopted a general plan in 2008, but was halted by a lawsuit from the Merced County Farm Bureau, which stated the city is trying to expand into an unrealistic amount of land.

The mayor, Samra and others have vowed to work on adopting a new general plan in the next year.

This story was originally published January 20, 2015 at 8:45 PM with the headline "New AutoZone opens in Livingston, fuels city’s future growth plans."