California Forever, the proposed futuristic community backed by billionaire venture capitalists, is now billing itself as a manufacturing center a year after local opposition forced it to withdraw plans to incorporate a new city.
The project’s organizers said Thursday that they plan to build the largest advanced manufacturing park in the US, calling it a bid to reclaim California’s legacy as a center for defense industries from aerospace to shipbuilding. The Solano Foundry, a 2,100-acre (850-hectare) tract, will offer proximity to Silicon Valley while providing more affordable housing, land and labor than elsewhere in the Bay Area.
The announcement is the latest sales pitch by the massive planned development between San Francisco and Sacramento, which has struggled to win regulatory approval as well as community support. California Forever consists of 68,500 acres of rolling farmland assembled since 2017 at a cost of more than $900 million. Backers include venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, former Sequoia Capital Chairman Mike Moritz and social-impact investor Laurene Powell Jobs…