Location & Affordability
Creates Great Opportunity
Of Heavy Truck Traffic
From Lower Mainland to Alberta
flows through Kamloops.
Jobs
In the Transportation
& Warehousing Sector
Hectares
Of industrial
zoned lands.
With Kamloops’ central location in the heart of British Columbia, along with its significant rail and highway infrastructure, it has long been looked at as a destination for Transportation & Warehousing businesses. This, along with affordable and available industrial lands positions Kamloops as a premier destination for Transportation and Warehousing businesses.
The information provided in this report is a high-level overview of the Transportation and Warehousing sector in Kamloops. The full report provides an overview of the labour force, infrastructure, facilities, and businesses, along with an assessment of the opportunities within the sector.
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Transportation & Warehousing
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The City of Kamloops has a number of distribution centres within city limits. They vary from smaller scale warehousing and distribution centres, to large, multi-national corporations. Current land availability in Kamloops appears more than sufficient to accommodate development of additional distribution facilities if the lands are properly serviced with municipal infrastructure on a timely and costs effective basis.
Less Than Truckload (LTL) means a shipment that does not require a full 48-or 53-foot trailer. LTL carriers require a network of terminals and generally operate with hub-and-spoke system of pickups and deliveries. The primary market for LTL services in BC is consumer goods such as food and beverage products, furniture, small packages, etc.
Kamloops has 3 major truckload carriers. Arrow Transportation Systems (3 locations), Trimac Transportation, and Westcan Bulk Services all handle large quantities of industrial commodities.
In 2016 the Canadian Trucking Alliance estimated that owner-operators account for approximately thirty percent of the for-hire driver pool in Canada. Of the 64 carriers engaged in freight movements located in Kamloops listed in the SAFER database, 50 or seventy-eight percent fit the typical definition of an owner-operator.
Rail shippers and intermodal facilities in Kamloops can take advantage of regulated interswitching rates to switch traffic between CN and CP at relatively low cost. Interchange traffic between CN and CP in Kamloops would be classified as Zone 1 traffic (movements within 6.4 km of the interswitching point). The 2020 rate for Distance Zone 1 movements is $310 per car, or $60 per car for blocks of 60 or more cars.
The key to competitiveness in this international intermodal rail traffic largely serving the consumer sector is sufficiently low fixed costs (industrial rents) to offset the higher transportation costs incurred. There appears to be sufficient industrial land available to accommodate growth in this specific area, as well as other areas of Transportation and Warehousing.
The City of Kamloops Official Community Plan (OCP) proposes development of additional industrial lands in the southwest sector of the city.
Economic development activities are overseen by the Kamloops Indian Band Development Corporation (KIBDC). The Band is developing a Master Plan for the 7-Mile project, an 81 ha (200-acre) rail-related industrial and highway commercial development on designated band lands.
Kamloops Industrial Zones
Transportation Uses
| Activity | I-1 Light Industrial |
I-15 Industrial Park |
I-2 General Industrial |
I-3 Heavy Industrial |
T-1 Railway |
T-2 Airport |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cartage, hauling, moving & storage | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Commercial cardlock facilities | 1 | |||||
| Truck travel centre | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Warehousing/miniWarehousing | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Wholesale distribution | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Transportation depots | 1 | |||||
| Railway lines, stations, yards | 1 | |||||
| Airport | 1 |
Kamloops Comparative
Industrial Land Costs
| Location | $ per Acre |
|---|---|
| Kamloops | $325,000 - $450,000 |
| Metro Vancouver | $3 million - $5 million |
| Kelowna | $1.4 million - $2.5 million |
| Calgary | $600,000 - $750,000 |
