40 MSF Manufacturing Campus Eyed in the Bay Area
The 2,100-acre master-planned development will be near a brand-new city.
California Forever developers intend to build Solano Foundry, a 2,100-acre, 40 million-square-foot mega-campus in Solano County, in the eastern Bay Area. The park will allow companies to have both R&D and manufacturing facilities on the same campus, accelerating product development cycles. Construction is projected to begin in 2028 and expected to span the next four decades.
The project’s mission and rationale is to help California reclaim its position as a leader in high-tech manufacturing. However, challenges such as the state’s stringent real estate entitlement and development regulations, as well as a persistent shortage of affordable housing, limit the scalability and accessibility of innovation hubs.
California Forever intends to address the first issue with Solano Foundry itself, which reportedly will offer 90-day permitting by completing 90 percent of the usual entitlement and utility connection steps up front, as part of the master-planning process.
READ ALSO: Manufacturing’s Comeback Gains Ground
The firm will address the second issue by developing an entire new city of up to 150,000 new units—housing 400,000 residents—across the tens of thousands of acres of land that California Forever has acquired in Solano County over recent years. The project will rise on non-prime farmland and not intrude on ecologically sensitive areas, such as Suisun Marsh and Jepson Prairie.
A California Forever spokesperson provided Commercial Property Executive with ample background information, but did not respond to a question about whether the envisioned new city will be a conventional, state-incorporated municipality, or a more corporate-centered type of entity like Starbase, Texas, sometimes seen as a company town for SpaceX.
Jan Sramek, CEO & founder of California Forever, said in prepared remarks that Silicon Valley originally earned its name because chip manufacturing and software development occurred in close proximity. He explained that the goal is to reestablish that integration—bringing research, development and manufacturing back together—to help U.S. companies improve supply chain efficiency and remain competitive globally.
A Bay Area master plan
Solano Foundry will rise within the California Forever master-planned community spanning 68,500 acres. The land was gradually acquired since 2017 at a cost of more than $900 million, according to Bloomberg. Initially pitched as a visionary, venture capital–backed city, the project has since pivoted toward a manufacturing-focused development following strong local opposition.
The Solano County location is an hour north of Silicon Valley and 5 miles from Travis Airforce Base—the largest Air Mobility Command base in America. The development will also be 7 miles from the planned Solano Shipyard, a proposed maritime logistics hub, and has rail connectivity to the wider Bay Area and Southern California.
Additionally, the location will also benefit from direct connection to the Interstate highway system due to highway improvements, JLL’s new Advanced Manufacturing Group reported in a white paper. Project documents also mention planned direct freight rail links to the Union Pacific.
The heavy energy needs of Solano Foundry and the new city reportedly will be met by more than 2 GW of renewable and baseload power through on-site generation and interconnection, as well as more than 5,000 GWh of battery storage.
You must be logged in to post a comment.