A wine warehouse three times the size of the American Canyon Wal-Mart Supercenter is slated for the industrial area of American Canyon off Green Island Road.

Trucking firm Biagi Bros. of Napa plans to open the 650,000-square-foot warehouse in October 2009 to store and ship up to 5 million bottles of wine for Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates of Santa Rosa, according to American Canyon reports.

The new distribution center will allow the consolidation of activities in four buildings in Napa into one location, company president Greg Biagi said Friday.

The American Canyon site was selected because a rail spur is right on the property, he said.

California Northern Railroad, a rail company that maintains a railroad yard at Napa Junction — the spot where rail passengers once boarded trains to Vallejo, Napa, St. Helena, Calistoga, Santa Rosa or Suisun — will serve the distribution center.

A dozen railcars each day could transport wine from American Canyon to Biagi distribution centers in Florida, Virginia, Texas and the New York area, Biagi said.

Having rail service will keep trucks off the roads, he said. Eventually, Biagi’s trucking fleet will transport 70 percent of the wine the company moves — the wine destined for California distributors —  while rail boxcars will ship the other 30 percent throughout the United States, according to the city report.

California Northern Railroad, which leases tracks from Union Pacific, will transport the wine to an interchange in Fairfield, said Bob Jones, vice president for Rail America, the parent company based in Florida. From there, a Union Pacific locomotive will take over the freight.

The American Canyon Planning Commission was scheduled to review the project last month. The review was postponed after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reassessed the environmentally sensitive wetlands on the property, according to the city.

The review may be scheduled later this month.

To avoid encroaching on the wetlands, the warehouse was redesigned, Biagi said. The building’s size remains the same, but it was made “fatter,” Biagi said.

Construction could start this summer, he said.