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- The company that quietly bought 50,000 acres of land to build a new city near San Francisco has revealed its master plan.
- California Forever says it wants to build a "walkable" city with new jobs, surrounded by an agricultural greenbelt.
- The company, founded by a former Goldman Sachs trading prodigy, has attracted billionaire investors.
A company backed by billionaires including Marc Andreessen and Laurene Powell Jobs says it has bought 50,000 acres of land to build a new city in Solano County, northern California. The company, Flannery Associates, has been quiet until now, but its parent company California Forever just launched a new website detailing its master plan.
Where is Solano County?
Solano County sits between Sacramento, San Francisco, and Napa Valley, and has a population of around 450,000 across just over 900 square miles. Its poverty rate is slightly below the US average, while its median household income is about 30% above the national average, per US Census Bureau data.
As well as a large agriculture industry, the county is home to Travis Air Force Base. The county says that it boasts "rolling hillsides, waterfronts, and fertile farmland," making leisure activities like fishing, boating, and skiing popular.
What are California Forever and Flannery Associates?
According to California Forever's website, Jan Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trading prodigy, moved to California around a decade ago and "fell in love" with Solano County during fishing trips on the California Delta. He had previously lived "in many of the world's most walkable, livable, and sustainable towns and cities," and became interested in whether he could apply what he'd learnt from this to the county, the website says.
California Forever says that "Jan became convinced that with a thoughtful design, the right long-term patient investors, and strong partnerships with all stakeholders, there would be an opportunity to build a remarkable place for Solano residents." Sramek founded California Forever in 2017 and recently bought a family home there.
California Forever says that over the last few years its subsidiary Flannery Associates has purchased more than 50,000 acres in eastern Solano County between Fairfield and Rio Vista, which court documents show it's spent more than $800 million on.
California Forever says it owns about half of the properties in this area.
California Forever says it's surveyed and interviewed about 2,000 residents, who say they want improvements to homeownership, employment opportunities, schools, public safety, infrastructure, and wildfire protection.
What do they plan to do with the site?
"Instead of watching our kids leave, we have the opportunity to build a new community that attracts new employers, creates good paying local jobs, builds homes in walkable neighborhoods, leads in environment stewardship, and fuels a growing tax base to serve the county at large," California Forever says.
The project is focused on creating a "compact community away from prime agricultural lands, surrounded by open space," with "homes, shopping, dining, and schools all within walking distance." California Forever says it wants to promote homeownership with properties of different sizes and prices.
California Forever says that all the properties it owns continue being leased to local farmers and ranchers for agricultural use. It notes that if a project were approved, some land currently used for grazing could be developed but it would still maintain grazing in large portions of eastern Solano County. It says that many local landowners told it that they don't want to sell or develop their properties, which instead would form an "agricultural greenbelt" around the development.
The company says the project could bring new employers to Solano and "independently create thousands of permanent, good-paying local jobs" in industries including construction, energy, and services, such as potentially building a large solar farm that it says would create hundreds of jobs.
California Forever also says that it would help solve regional infrastructure needs, including energy, transportation, water, and wildfire protection.
Why has the whole project been so quiet?
The company says that it's been operating in "stealth mode" because it was the "only way to avoid creating a rush of reckless short-term land speculation" until it had finished acquiring the properties.
"Now that we're no longer limited by confidentiality, we are eager to begin a conversation about the future of Solano County," it says.
Who's invested in the project?
California Forever says that around 97% of its capital comes from US investors, including Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, John Doerr, Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, Reid Hoffman, Michael Moritz, Laurene Powell Jobs, and investment firm Andreessen Horowitz. The remaining 3% comes from UK and Irish investors including Patrick and John Collison.