Anaheim Plans Update for Its Industrial Area : Planning: The focal point would be two rail stations. The district contains 2,000 firms that make up 60% of the city’s industrial capacity.

City officials are working on a proposal to update the city’s northeast industrial section over the next 20 years, making the focal point two proposed commuter rail stations.

The Redevelopment Agency proposal, still in the planning stages, calls for redesigning most of that area’s factories to accommodate light rather than heavy industry and increasing floor space by about 25%. The number of employees in the area would increase from 35,000 to 45,000, officials said.

The district, which contains 2,000 firms that make up 60% of the city’s industrial capacity, is bordered roughly by the Orange Freeway in the west, the Riverside Freeway to the south, La Palma Avenue to the north and Tustin Avenue to the east.

No timeline has been set for beginning the project. The agency has no cost estimate but hopes to begin work on an environmental impact report by Feb. 25, said Richard Bruckner, the agency’s development services manager.

“We are already witnessing a shift in the industrial base of Orange County and Los Angeles County, away from heavy industries and manufacturing to such things as research and engineering,” Bruckner said. “We are seeing a shift from blue-collar workers to white collar.

“People here are now designing things and assembling, and that often requires a different type of building than large, one-story manufacturing plants,” he said.

New factories might have an average floor space of 20,000 square feet instead of 100,000 square feet, he said, but would have as many if not more employees.

The train stations would be on two commuter rail lines that regional transportation officials hope to begin operating this decade on existing tracks. One line would run east and west and connect Riverside and Los Angeles, with a stop in Anaheim. The other would be a north-south line that would connect South County to Anaheim.

Bruckner said one station would be for outbound local residents who mostly commute to Los Angeles, while the other station would be a disembarking depot for workers in the industrial zone.

Shuttles would take the workers from the station to their plants in the morning and bring them back at night, Bruckner said.

“The (Riverside) Freeway is pretty much a parking lot now as it is,” he said. “The trains and the stations will give the workers an alternative.”