The following article was originally printed on July 31, 2015 in Silicon Valley Business Journal’s Redefining What it Means to be a Silicon Valley City Advertising Supplement.

This was the moment of reckoning.

It was 11 am on April 15, 2011.

The Fremont contingent led by City Manager Fred Diaz sat in the Union Pacific headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, ready to make their case for community over railroad tracks.

“Of course, it was nerve racking,”recalled Diaz. “Our vision for Fremont was at stake.”

Specifically, after the NUMMI auto plant in Fremont closed in 2010, Toyota sold most of the land — 167 acres to be exact — to Union Pacific to be converted to a rail yard. If Fremont were to deliver on its vision to redefine what it means to be a Silicon Valley city, that land needed to be part of the City’s master plan to create an urban environment and what would be the country’s first advanced manufacturing-based innovation district with mixed land uses.

So Diaz and his colleagues, requisite water bottles in hand, stood in front of the Union Pacific executives, including CEO James R. Young, and delivered a presentation that articulated the “why” behind their trek from Fremont to Omaha. Three hours later, the Fremont team walked out the door with their answer.

Yes, Union Pacific would support Fremont’s vision and would in fact make an unprecedented move to sell the land for commercial development.

To borrow from Silicon Valley vernacular, this “disruptive event” forever changed Fremont’s trajectory. And that’s the reason why the 97th largest city in the country has gained such a high profile — not only in the Bay Area, but across the rest of the country as well. However, before jumping into Fremont today, a little bit of historical context is in order.


What Do Charlie Chaplin and the Apple Macintosh Have in Common?

On January 23, 1956, five individual townships – Centerville, Irvington, Mission San Jose, Niles and Warm Springs – came together to form what we now know to be the City of Fremont.

One of these townships — Niles — was the earliest home of California’s motion picture industry, thanks in large part to The King of Slapstick Humor (aka Mr. Charlie Chaplin). Chaplin filmed several movies in Fremont, most notably “The Tramp.”

But Charlie Chaplin’s film work isn’t all that originated in Fremont.

Ever heard of a little something called a Mac computer? Apple’s first Macintosh was created in a 160,000-square-foot factory, located on Warm Springs Blvd. in Fremont. The factory site was designed by none other than Steve Jobs himself.

At the time, this Apple factory was recognized as one of the nation’s most automated plants, utilizing manufacturing methods that were ahead of its time (robotics, just-in-time materials delivery, a linear assembly line). These techniques enabled the factory to produce a new Mac every 27 seconds.

Robotics? Automation? You might even call this foreshadowing for Tesla’s factory, which today churns out about 1000 cars a week.

As you can see, there’s always been a history of “making stuff” in Fremont.


In the Spirit of Silicon Valley, Deviating from the Status Quo

While Fremont does have a rich history in advanced manufacturing, that’s not to say that the City hasn’t had its fair share of set-backs. NUMMI’s closure in April 2010, followed shortly by Solyndra’s bankruptcy in August 2011, was a punch to the mid-section. But rather than dwell on the past, Fremont’s City Council picked itself up and started thinking strategically about its long-term vision. From that moment forward, the City made a conscious decision to invest in urban planning.

The first step was engaging with the Urban Land Institute (ULI), a national education and research institute. In 2012, representatives from the ULI carefully analyzed an 850-acre parcel of land in the Warm Springs/South Fremont area and confirmed what Fremont officials had known for years — the City has tremendous assets from which to build, including climate, location, community demographics, and access to freeways and BART.

“You’ve got such a great potential here, and the market is ready for it,” reported Victor Karen, chairman of the ULI advisory panel and principal of Citybuilding Enterprises in Boston. “The economy, in some areas, is on the upswing. Development is all about timing.”

So, Fremont decided to strike while the iron was hot and push forward with its vision of transforming the Warm Springs/South Fremont area into a 21st century employment center.

Reinventing Fremont with Warm Springs

Given a little more context, you can see why Fremont was so intent on making sure Union Pacific didn’t convert this piece of land into a rail yard. The City had much bigger plans in mind for this land parcel. It would become the site of the nation’s first advanced manufacturing-based innovation district.

And this is not your father’s Innovation District. Fremont is leading the way to revitalize the outdated industrial park, demonstrating that a new prototype, anchored by advanced manufacturing, is indeed possible.

The new Warm Springs/South Fremont BART station opening in December 2015 will serve as the connector between Fremont’s Innovation District and the rest of Silicon Valley, enabling people to easily travel to and from existing employment centers, such as Tesla and Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Just recently, the last piece of the puzzle for the Warm Springs plan fell into place. Lennar Corporation bought a 112-acre parcel of land from Union Pacific Railroad, and committed to developing a mix of 2,214 apartments and houses, and 1.4 million square feet of research and development and Class A office space — all a stone’s throw away from the new BART station.

“Hockey great Wayne Gretsky said: ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been,’” offered Fremont’s Mayor Bill Harrison. “That’s essentially what we’re doing in the design of Warm Springs, anticipating how to shape an urban environment looking out 10, 20 or even 30 years from now.”

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