THE FUTURE OF LOGISTICS IN RIVERSIDE COUNTY: 

A Focus on Transition & Innovation

The inclusion of logistics as one of the EDSP’s eight priority industry clusters warrants further explanation. While logistics has clearly been a major job creator in Riverside County over the past two decades, it has also increasingly been the subject of community concerns about job quality and environmental impacts. Even from a market perspective, there are current indications that the industry is overbuilt, with a substantial uptick in vacancies of major warehouse buildings.

To be clear, the EDSP is not recommending that RivCoED expend resources to target the attraction of new warehouse facilities. Instead, the EDSP recommends a focus on facilitating an eventual transition of the industry to include a higher concentration of innovation-oriented jobs related to transportation and goods movement, consistent with the growing technological capacities in other targeted industries.

The EDSP recommends that RivCoED also play a direct role in encouraging creative reuse of surplus warehouse buildings in a manner that enhances the region’s capacity to attract and grow other targeted industries such as advanced manufacturing.