Page 10 - Vallejo_Chamber_of_Commerce_Magazine_Winter_2019

the environmental space,” Morat said.
remediation… Lennar
identified more than 850 Factory OS set up in a
cleanup sites, after being warehouse that was once used
told there were barely for making submarines. Now,
more than 100 when they in its second year of business,
first acquired the property. it has 200 employees, with
plans to further expand
“They are down to the last over the next year. “The
nine,” he added. “That’s thing that I think gets lost
how close Mare Island is sometimes is the secondary
to being environmentally impact this all has on the rest
cleaned up. That opened of us,” Morat said. “When
the door for someone you add 200 jobs at Factory
like the Nimitz Group OS, those 200 people need
to come in and say, ‘Ok, someplace to eat or enjoy
now that it’s clean, what entertainment. What about
can I do with it?’” all the other businesses that
can open, grow, and expand?”
Morat is one of many at City Hall who sees the
potential for a snowball effect of economic growth. “If “Two years ago you couldn’t find anything to eat on
someone were to ask me what the future of Vallejo look Mare Island, you had to leave the island for lunch,” he
continued. “Now there are three to four food trucks that
like, I’d say it’s your Saturday farmer’s market every
Redeveloping Vallejo day and evening of the week,” he said. “If you can drive around the island all day. That shows how other
businesses can move in and take advantage of the growth.”
create that kind of activity and that number of people,
that’s a thriving economy. You do that a little bit at a
time, by adding jobs and helping businesses out.” Plenty of other examples show new growth, like the
Godfather Winery on the island and Mare Island
Morat says he is already seeing evidence of it, pointing Brewery at the ferry building. A new dance club,
By: Nate Gartrell to recent ventures like Factory OS, a manufacturing Revolution, is also opening in the city’s downtown.
company that literally builds housing units for shipment by
allejo city leaders speak of a future that includes 50,000 employment opportunities truck to other areas. “I think that’s a tribute to the unique “Two years ago, there wasn’t a demand for [a club]. Now,
it’s a new, really cool activity that’s going to draw people
qualities Vallejo has, that we can have manufacturing
situated on Mare Island, along with housing, infrastructure, restaurants and entertainment downtown on Friday or Saturday nights,” Morat said.
facilities on that level because we have that kind of
to match. This vision has more or less been the city’s ultimate goal since the US Navy
Vpulled out of the island in 1996, taking with it tens of thousands of jobs. However,
after years of economic downturns, bankruptcy, and general uncertainty about the future,
there is enthusiasm around the city. The future so many have envisioned seems tangible.

Much of this excitement, at least at City Hall, can “[Nimitz] wants to give Mare Island this ‘work, play,
be traced back to one man: billionaire Tennessean live’ environment and restart that economic engine that
investor Gaylon M. Lawrence Jr., who recently drove Vallejo’s economy for 150 years. This is really the
set his sights on Northern California—and he resurgence of it,” Vallejo Deputy City Manager Will Morat
is set to control 900 acres of Mare Island. said. “The Nimitz Group isn’t just here to build something
and get rid of it in five years to make a buck; they want
Lawrence—a banker and farmer whose father was their grandchildren to be able to come here and enjoy it.”
known as one of the biggest citrus field owners in
Florida—came to this area, intent on sinking his In August, the City Council approved a 500-acre
teeth into the wine industry (his purchases of Heitz deal between Nimitz and the homebuilding company
Cellar and Haynes Vineyard made headlines). Along Lennar. Lennar had control of the site for the past
the way, Lawrence linked up with Dave Phinney, 18 years, spending most of that time cleaning it
who owns Savage & Cooke Distillery, one of many up. Areas that once built nuclear submarines and
recently established businesses on Mare Island. The maintained warships had to be refurbished to live up
two have formed the Nimitz Group, and they recently to the standards for new development that are required
took control of the majority of the island, including its by state and local environmental regulations.
industrial sites, potential housing developments, and “Lennar was busy over the last 18 years,” Morat said.
space once occupied by the now-defunct golf course. “They weren’t able to build a lot, but they completed

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