Page 12 - Vallejo_Chamber_of_Commerce_Magazine_Winter_2019
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Nimitz isn’t the only company to see development Elsewhere in the city, major projects
potential in Mare Island, just the biggest. The are poised to start in the new year,
developer, Wiseman Company’s Chief Business including plans to add more than 300
Development Officer Zen Hunter-Ishikawa, said homes at two locations, expected to
Vallejo is part of the company’s efforts to draw be finalized in early 2020. One is to
business into Solano County from San Francisco. expand Costco to a new lot on Admiral
The Wiseman Company sees the potential to lure Callaghan Lane, between Rotary Way
tech companies and other corporations who are and Turner Parkway, and about 175
taking part in that Hunter-Ishikawa-called “San homes adjacent to it. Another 175-home
Francisco exodus,” driven by traffic congestion plan will build two-story dwellings on
and increasing costs for office space. Their Vallejo’s waterfront, near the Mare
campaign’s slogan is “Make Your Class A Move.” Island Causeway. This plan will include
two parks, with a walkway that will go
“There are companies that are leaving San by the nearby Zio Fraedos restaurant.
Francisco and going to Denver or Austin.
We’re making the case to them that there was Thinking further down the line, the
a reason you were in California in the first city is also in the early stages of a plan
place. We’re giving them an option to stay to add roughly 600 homes to the area
where they want to be,” Hunter-Ishikawa said. on what is now the Blue Rock Springs
Golf Course. This plan includes a
Vallejo, he said, was identified as “an renovation of the existing golf course
undervalued location,” thanks to its location, clubhouse and a redesigned course
diverse population and easy access to other that is much smaller than the current
parts of the Bay Area, be it the short drive to 36-hole course that exists today.
Napa or the quick ferry ride to San Francisco.
“The golf course will create this
buffer between the existing homes
and the new homes,” Morat said. “That will really
ensure that if you have a home now that is backed up
against the golf course, you can continue to have that.
We won’t just build new homes in people’s backyards.”
Morat credited the City Council for working to increase
The staffing in the city’s Planning Department in recent
BEST years. In the past two years, “significant changes” have
happened to the city’s permitting process, he said.
WEBSITE for “We weren’t staffed in a way that gave us the ability to
Special Events process that much, and now we are,” Morat said. “We’re
really able to start adjusting things comprehensively.
Because we have the staff, there is no line; we can
in VALLEJO… handle multiple projects at the same time.”
VisitVallejo.com “[During] the history of Vallejo over the last 10 years, we
were at bare-bones staff for many years, and now we’re
or VISIT US back on our financial feet and we have a City Council
that is willing to make it a priority,” Morat added.
in the Vallejo
Ferry Terminal
289 Mare Island Way
707.642.3653
PHOTO: ERIC DUGAN
10 Winter www.vallejochamber.com
