Challenge is getting companies to actually move into the spaces earmarked for them.
My area has gone all in on mandating that all new housing must:
Be dense, but short (Max of 4 stories)
Constructed with dedicated office and retail space
Ok cool, walkable… Except the companies aren’t moving into the retail or office space. Since they only get a useless amount of street side parking, they can’t really serve people outside walking distance reasonably. Meanwhile they can find a bigger spot a few miles down the road with parking to serve a bigger area. Serving a walkable community might be worth it if the apartments were high rise providing the requisite density to support such business. Once upon a time, business did subsist on that volume of customers, but nowadays businesses demand more efficiency…
I think these places will have the opposite problem.
The land is being purchased by heads of industry, not real estate investors who then have to lure business to the area. These people can just move parts of their business there and or strong arm the companies they invest in to move there.
Trick will encouraging people to be the first waves of tech folks to move to the area for work. The work will be there, but the communities / social life won’t be popping at first. People will also need to give up temperate Bay Area weather for hot ass Solano county.
IMHO, if someone wants to build desirable housing next to desirable employment, I’m all for it. CA desperately needs any damn housing it can get.
Challenge is getting companies to actually move into the spaces earmarked for them.
My area has gone all in on mandating that all new housing must: Be dense, but short (Max of 4 stories) Constructed with dedicated office and retail space
Ok cool, walkable… Except the companies aren’t moving into the retail or office space. Since they only get a useless amount of street side parking, they can’t really serve people outside walking distance reasonably. Meanwhile they can find a bigger spot a few miles down the road with parking to serve a bigger area. Serving a walkable community might be worth it if the apartments were high rise providing the requisite density to support such business. Once upon a time, business did subsist on that volume of customers, but nowadays businesses demand more efficiency…
I think these places will have the opposite problem.
The land is being purchased by heads of industry, not real estate investors who then have to lure business to the area. These people can just move parts of their business there and or strong arm the companies they invest in to move there.
Trick will encouraging people to be the first waves of tech folks to move to the area for work. The work will be there, but the communities / social life won’t be popping at first. People will also need to give up temperate Bay Area weather for hot ass Solano county.