First there was “California Forever,” and now, “Frontier Valley?” While most people have by now heard of the proposed utopian community put forward by a group of tech billionaires who bought up millions of acres of land in a shadowy bid to spring a new city on an unsuspecting Solano County, Frontier Valley is likely less familiar to most Bay Area residents.
Although it boasts a name that seems arguably better suited for an assisted living facility in a rural county, Frontier Valley is actually a proposed “special regulation district” designed to “dramatically accelerate” technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics.
Where is it you ask?
According to the organizers of the proposal, it’s just 2.5 miles from San Francisco on “federal land” at Alameda Point. As you may be beginning to surmise, Frontier Valley doesn’t actually exist.
But the plan, pending an executive order from the Trump administration, is to develop a parcel of land on the former Alameda Naval Air Station into a “zone that will feature the most expedited regulatory code in the United States for deep tech innovation — averaging approximately 10x faster permitting across all categories than anywhere else in the country.”
The project is being spearheaded by James Ingallinera, who according to his LinkedIn, was previously an analyst at Bain Capital and has founded several startups.
Envisioned as “the new Silicon Valley,” Frontier Valley would be larger than SF’s SoMa district, the website points out. Renderings on the project’s website show rows of low-slung, futuristic buildings, along with blocks of what look like condos, interspersed with lush, green parks and bands of greenery.
There’s also a map with a big, red circle around Alameda Point, in case anyone needed to know where it is. The 512-acre development would feature 3 million square feet of office space, housing for up to 10,000 residents — the equivalent of about 13% of Alameda’s present population — 5 million square feet of manufacturing space, and an 80-acre waterfront park.
So why Alameda Point? According to the project website, the former Naval Air Station was chosen because of its close proximity to SF, it was federal land, and because it is “also perfectly flat.” “It is the Bay Area’s one and only practical option for executing a zone of this scale,” the project website points out.
Currently, it should be pointed out, no known proposed executive order exists to implement the project. Although Frontier Valley has been nice enough to draft one on its website. In it, Frontier Valley urges the president to declare a national security emergency in the interest of “maintaining technological superiority.”
There is also significant redevelopment already underway on Alameda Point which is already home to innovative companies like Saildrone and Kairos Nuclear Power. Not to mention the several breweries, wineries and mixed-use residential developments that already exist there.
The City of Alameda, which owns most of Alameda Point, already has plans for further development of the area that includes a “mix of commercial, residential, open space, recreational, and retail uses.”
Of the remaining 512-acre parcel that’s still federally owned, where Ingallinera is proposing to put Frontier Valley, plans are currently underway by the Department of Veterans Affairs to build a medical clinic and a National Cemetary Columbarium — an above-ground burial site.
KRON4.com has reached out to both the City of Alameda and Frontier Valley for comment. We have yet to hear back.
Source: https://www.kron4.com/
