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Bear Creek will get warehouse Medford planners OK storage site By JIM DAVIS The Medford Planning Commission approved a plan Thursday night to allow Bear Creek Corp. to build a 112,000-square-foot fruit warehouse in southwest Medford. KOGAP Enterprises Inc. plans to build the plant and lease it to the international fruit packaging and shipping business. The warehouse will include dry storage and freezer storage. It is the first of three planned at the site, which is located just west of South Pacific Highway and about 250 feet south of Belknap Road. The land is the site of the former KOGAP mill that closed in 1991. Now a diversified company, KOGAP is owned by former Medford Mayor Jerry Lausmann. The KOGAP land is adjacent to the existing Bear Creek Corp. packing, shipping and customer service plant. Kathleen Purdy, Bear Creek's senior vice president of facilities/construction, said her company is hoping to get the warehouse built by next spring. She said the other two warehouses will be built as the business needs them. With the warehouse, Bear Creek Corp. is estimating the company will cut down on truck traffic going to its warehouses in Klamath Falls and White City by 53,000 miles per year. Commissioners voted 7-0 to support the conditional-use permit. Two commissioners were absent. In other business, commissioners: Granted a second extension to Stonebrook Associates, which is seeking to build a 513-unit mobile home park in west Medford. The commission is expected to pick up the issue at its meeting on May 13. Planning Commission Chairman Carl Bartlett read a statement after the postponement, urging commissioners to come prepared for that meeting. "This will probably be the largest mobile home project in Oregon, and the largest project you will ever work on," Bartlett said. Approved a 74-lot residential subdivision on 18 acres on the west side of Orchard Home Drive about 200 feet south of Orchard Home Court in west Medford. Gave final approval to two phases of the Rogue Valley Manor's planned-unit development. The phases include the building of a 60-unit senior housing facility and office building, a private street, 13 cottages and golf cart storage on the Manor's land east of Interstate 5 between Ellendale and La Loma Drive. Today's Business Index Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA