12 hours ago
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
Tech entrepreneur pushes plan for ‘Silicon Valley 2.0' on Bay Area waterfront
A Silicon Valley entrepreneur is circulating plans for a futuristic tech enclave in Alameda, on land that is already slated for development.
The pitch for Frontier Valley, a 512-acre waterfront complex that combines dense residential buildings with space to launch drones and rockets, surfaced on social media Sunday and instantly went viral. It confounded officials in Alameda, who said the project's founder, James Ingallinera, had not contacted them about his proposal.
Cloaked in flashy visuals and brash marketing language, the idea for Frontier Valley still seems inchoate. Ingallinera envisions his development as a special jurisdiction independent from the Bay Area and the state, a form of zoning that would require an emergency declaration from President Trump. Frontier Valley fits the template of a 'Freedom City,' or deregulated area meant to serve as a vast open-air laboratory for new technology. Trump has vowed to build ten of them.
Renderings of Frontier Valley show a landscape that resembles the world of a video game, with steel zeppelins and hovercrafts floating among cylindrical glass towers. Promotional materials on the website advertise a culture of 'radical moonshots and freedom,' steeped in techno-optimism and the celebration of personal liberty, with ambition to match Trump's erstwhile advisor, Elon Musk. The plan was first reported by the Nerd Reich website.
'This is the Manhattan Project of our time,' Ingallinera says in a video posted on his project's website. He also describes Frontier Valley as 'a wholly new, self-contained, Silicon Valley 2.0,' with loose regulations and complete independence from both the Bay Area and the state.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Ingallinera previously founded another company that built co-habitational dwellings in San Francisco and New York City, aimed at young techies who would sleep in bunk beds. He also advised a nonprofit dedicated to whole brain emulation, the concept that scientists could create a digital replica of the human brain. Ingallinera did not respond to inquiries from the Chronicle on Monday.
A spokesperson for the city of Alameda said the parcel that Ingallinera's group is targeting, a former naval air station called Alameda Point, has other development projects underway. These include a Veterans Administration medical facility and columbarium that Congress has authorized and funded, as well as a 158-acre open space park, created in partnership with East Bay Regional Parks District.
'No reasonable fact supports the proposed declaration of emergency at Alameda Point,' city spokesperson Sarah Henry said in a statement, noting that city leaders fully support turning the area, now home to a shoreline park, several craft breweries, two ferry terminals, into a 'vibrant community of commercial, industrial, and residential uses, including many high-tech and bio-tech uses.'
Ingallinera is eyeing land adjacent to those buzzy transit hubs and dining corridors, which is currently empty but will ultimately house the park and VA medical campus. As of now it has no infrastructure, Henry said.
