Council approves amended plan for World Class Freezer facility after safety, layout changes

Seabrook City Council on March 4 approved amendments to the World Class Freezer Facility planned unit development, a change that reduces the warehouse footprint, shifts the building toward the northern property boundary and retains a required 8-foot masonry/concrete buffer wall.

The project’s representative told the council the revised building would shrink from roughly 134,632 square feet to about 72,000 square feet and be designed to serve multiple tenants. Ken Jackson, who identified himself as owner of Camfield Partners, said the redesign breaks the refrigeration system into multiple, standalone refrigeration units sized well below state and federal program thresholds.

Jackson said each rooftop refrigeration box will serve two tenant spaces and that each system is designed for only a few hundred pounds of ammonia — well under threshold amounts that would trigger a mandatory Process Safety Management (PSM) requirement at the federal and state level. “The combination is 2,500 pounds of ammonia,” Jackson said, and added that the planned design remains below OSHA and Texas thresholds for PSM reporting. He told council the facility will maintain a PSM voluntarily and contract with an experienced refrigeration service contractor for maintenance.

Mary Chambers, a consultant with Marsh Darcy Partners presenting the staff summary, told council the site is zoned C-2 and identified as light-industrial in the city’s comprehensive plan; she said the planning commission had unanimously recommended approval at its January meeting. The revised site plan adds an on-site detention pond and creates ingress and egress off a frontage road so large trucks need not use State Highway 146 for all movements.

During the public hearing residents asked about safety and the nature of tenant businesses. Project representatives said the building is primarily cold storage (no food processing) and predicted an average tenant would employ about six workers and several drivers; the developer estimated roughly 90 jobs across the building’s tenants. “It will likely have some frozen seafood, fresh flowers, certain fruits and vegetables,” Jackson said, adding the design is convertible and could operate as a cooler rather than a freezer for some tenants.

The council then moved to adopt an ordinance amending the PUD; the mayor called the vote and declared it unanimous.

Staff noted that final permits and tenant-by-tenant certificates of occupancy would be enforced under code; the developer and staff confirmed that tenant occupancy and required COs must be in place as part of building permit review and business licensing procedures.

The ordinance approved at the meeting revises the site plan, plan regulations and conditions of the August 6, 2024 PUD approval; it also includes a standard penalty clause for violations of city ordinances.