By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Davis, CA – DiSC 2022 is heading back to the voters as the council voted 5-0 to put the measure on the ballot for June 7, 2022. The original project was defeated by a 52-48 in November 2020.
On Tuesday night, Attorney Matt Keasling spent some time anticipating and, he hoped, heading off some likely criticism of the project. First, that it would add GHG emissions and move away from climate change 
goals. Second, that it would worsen traffic on Mace Blvd. Third, that it would hurt downtown businesses. And fourth, that it is just another office park, with no true demand from Innovation Companies.
“We want to take an opportunity to respond to all of those things proactively,” Keasling told the council.
He referenced a regional map on VMT (Vehicle Miles Traveled) and said, “Davis, quite frankly has a challenge with VMT. Particularly that if you’re living in Davis and you need to do anything that’s not in the city of Davis, it actually is a pretty long drive to your next location.”
Because of that, “you tend to have a higher VMT across the board than other jurisdictions, particularly the city and county of Sacramento.”
“However, what our analysis shows us is that the VMT associated with this project is less than the city’s average. It’s almost 10% less than the city and UC Davis combined VMT average,” Keasling explained. “And so DISC is moving the city in the right direction when it comes to VMT and with our mitigation measures to create a robust TDM, we believe we will achieve the 15% below the regional VMT average at project buildout with our mitigations.”
With respect to Mace traffic, Keasling pointed out, “On day one of this project, we’re required to fund the city doing a comprehensive Mace Blvd corridor study that looks at Mace Blvd from Cowell Blvd, all the way up to Harper Junior High.”
At that point the city will look at Mace and ask what needs to happen “to make it work better than it does today.” He said, the analysis tells them that at the end of the day, “Mace Blvd, both north and south of the freeway, functions better with this project, because of the mitigations it brings online, then it does without this project.”
He continued, “I do think that’s important to point out that although there will be additional cars coming and going from this location, the project is required to mitigate for it. And those mitigations result in an overall roadway system that functions better than it would otherwise.”
Next Keasling addressed the impact of downtown businesses.
EPS estimates that employees on the site will “spend on average $8.3 million offsite within Davis a year – that’s $8.3 million spent at other Davis businesses by the folks living and working here.” He continued, “that does not include the almost $42 million in business to business transactions where the businesses at the DISC site are doing business with other businesses within the city of Davis.”
He continues, “Additionally, what it shows is at full buildout, the annual employee compensation is around $200 million from the people that work at this site, which is a major boost to the regional economy.”
Finally he noted, “as sort of a safeguard against any concern that perhaps our retail will draw people away from the core, we do have a requirement that prior to developing any retail on site, we have to conduct a demand study to show that there is sufficient demand generated on our project site that warrants creation of that retail, or we are precluded from creating the retail until the demand exists from within the DiSC 2022 development.”
Finally to respond to the issue of demand, Keasling brought in Bob Geolis. Geolis has spent 30 years working at the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina including eight at the Vice President of Economic Development at Clemson and five years as President and CEO of the Research Triangle Park itself.
He has spent time recently advising and working on the Aggie Square Project.
When the Research Triangle Park (“RTP”) was conceived in North Carolina, leaders in North Carolina worried about the state’s economic future. Per capita income was 49th in the nation.
Geolis related the story of growing up in an area in North Carolina near Raleigh-Durham as a young boy and the impact that the project had on his father, a working class electrician.
“He ultimately got a job selling pagers for a company called Motorola to all the new employees moving into RTP from IBM. We were able to buy a house, moving into a neighborhood… I got a chance to grow up and go to college,” he explained. “I look back and I think about that experience and realize that the fact that RTP existed for us gave a kid like me from a working class family, the opportunity to grow up one day and actually have the ability to run it and to lead it.”
He added, “Always with the expectation that what we were really all about was lifting other people up.”
Since that time, “research parks have changed,” and “the way we think about them is entirely different,” Geolis explained. “I think that’s what this project represents. We don’t build old fashioned office parks or research parks or business parks anymore. We build communities of innovation and we build them with the expectation that they’re going to be places of collaboration that they’re going to bring together, university industry, government partnerships.”
He said, “I think what you’re seeing in this project, it’s laying that groundwork.”
“It’s not the biggest project out there,” he said. “It’s a good size. But it’s smaller than most, but that means it represents your community. It also means it can have a very meaningful impact in people’s lives.”
He concluded, “I’m very bullish on it and I’m excited about what it can mean for Davis and your community.”
David, why do you say “hopefully”?
He was hoping to head off some likely criticism. But my bad, I should have stated it better and unfortunately, Highbeam had to leave before she edited this one.
I thought Highbeam edited for grammar and structure; I didn’t know she also headed off your Freudian slips 😐
She’s pretty good about it generally. But I will cop to that.
It has been edited to read, “On Tuesday night, Attorney Matt Keasling spent some time anticipating and, he hoped, heading off some likely criticism of the project.”
I had to leave for work before this was written, and was not back until evening. Did not see this, and probably won’t have time to look at it today.
A few decades down the road when I’m in hospice waiting to meet the Lord, I’m gonna call up this article on my holophone and check off which promises presented last night came true. Then I will meet my maker.
So, Alan M, is this your predicted timeline for DISC traffic mitigation or a double-dose of optimism?
Again, if the developers won’t put a promised component (including mitigation) into the ‘baseline features’ or, if they use ambiguous terms to qualify performance, funding or timing of a baseline feature, I think the chances for compliance are slim to none.
The thing is that regional VMT – about 37% per the above graphic – is REALLY high. In 2015 Atlanta was about 16% higher, but the Bay Area was around 35% lower… Los Angeles, and even Dallas and Houston are lower. NYC close to 50% lower. I could use all sorts of literally bloody metaphors here but the point is that VMT here so horrible here that it’s ridiculous to imply that about a 10% projected lower level is anything approaching green or sustainable.
Anyone who lives in Davis and also works in Davis already spends money in Davis. DISCvelopers promise a significant number from Davis will work here, and some of these people already work here, so how does that factor into the $8.3 million? Also does it exclude the people who drive or take other means of transport – perhaps especially from the east or more distant location – and will be likely to just head home after work and not bother with a long journey to Downtown or by car to South Davis for lunch? Or this just going to induce a lot of food delivery by motor vehicle five or more days a week?
Not all businesses in the City are locally-owned. This seems to be a relevant distinction in this context.
I am assuming that this is about income taxes, or in any case that’s to what I refer. Technically “. .. annual employee compensation is around $200 million from the people that work at this site, which is a major boost to the regional economy.”- speaking and in relation to several important tax-related issues, our region ends at the west border of the City and the Campus, or to a certain extent excludes the Campus. Commuters by motor vehicle from San Francisco, for example, will pay two tolls per trip, both of which go to MTC, and likely more than half of any gasoline outside of Davis and the SACOG area. So “regional economy” is not really a technical term, and doesn’t tell the real story. (Unless the study IS just about the SACOG region’s residents).
Todd
Useful questions, but some of these go to regional structure, not the project itself.
1) No in the Central Valley can get to Bay Area VMTs unless we have massive restructuring of land use in the region. Transit appears to need densities of at least 9,000/sq mile to be effective (e.g., Oakland vs. 5,000 for San Jose and 7,000 for Davis.) Are you proposing that we empty the Central Valley, which is already lagging the rest of the state economically? No, we need to get the incremental gains that we can and we need to be very cognizant of those that we leave behind if try to hold a projec to an unreachable standard. (And as one climate change researched noted here a few years ago, we’ll eventually have mostly EVs and VMT will have no real implication for GHG emissions.)
2) Having done a few regional economic impact studies, they are done on a with and without basis, so that $8M is additional activity that already accounts for what is currently happening. You ask a good question about the boundaries for “regional economy.” The available software allows the researcher to define those boundaries, and now can go down to the zip code. Thus, the region is not necessarily pre-defined.
3) The economic study software accounts for the flows in and out of the region from business ownership.
Said Matt Kiesling in the Alternate Reality Metaverse – “I do think it is important to point out that although there will be an additional 12,000 cars per day cars coming and going from this location on an already hopelessly congested corridor, the project is required to mitigate for it. So we’ll add a a few lane restripings and modifications to street instersections to make it safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. Although that would normally be expected to slow traffic, because we pay our hand-picked slick traffic engineers gobs of money to say so, those mitigations result in an overall roadway system that functions better than it would otherwise. Trust the City on this one. They know Mace Blvd. Didn’t the City’s traffic engineers also promise the Mace Mess would work much better after those modifications than before,…eh?
…er,…nevermind!”
I don’t recall this: “Didn’t the City’s traffic engineers also promise the Mace Mess would work much better after those modifications than before,…eh?” Can you point me to that?
David, you appear to be saying that the City’s traffic engineers promised the Mace Mess would work worse after their modifications than before. Is that what you are saying?
Regarding the pitch from Goelis, Ramos’ hired gun
Well it seems that this project is exactly an “old-fashion business park” where almost all of the employees will drive in every morning, drive somewhere to get lunch, drive back to work, and then drive home every night… Or how else do you come up with 12,000 trips per day for about 2,500 employees projected at the site.
And Ramos put “Innovation” in the project name to prove it. But too bad UCD hasn’t signed on yet and not a single tenant has signed on either with DISC nor has the Woodland Innovation Center signed a single commercial tenant in 5 years! What’s with that? What if they gave a party and nobody came?
I guess we’re to understand that adding more car trips is of no concern, as long as this situation is “mitigated.” And of course the innovative plan to “mitigate” extra car traffic is to add more lanes and widen the intersections. Because accommodating more private cars is just how we’ve always tried to fix congestion. (except that in this case it is new and exciting and will finally work because, innovation).
Our worry about obesity can also be fixed by distributing bigger pants.
I pronounce this the “comment of the day”.
Priceless!
Couple of comments:
1) Mr Pryor’s concern that people are not yet signed on to fill this space are un-founded. We effectively have a negative vacancy rate in this town at the moment for small-unit R&D space. What we DO have to pressure the city and the planning commission on, after the entitlement phase, is to make sure that the developer does not only build out large “buzz boxes” for big companies to inhabit, but indeed has a mix of property sizes which helps to accommodate the large number of smaller innovation companies who need space like that and are currently NOT finding it – so they end up in west sac, woodland etc.
We also need to pressure the city to indeed develop this place like an “innovation district” and less like a car-centric business park. As someone who lives only two blocks away, I welcome the notion of having a small commercial district nearby with its own eateries, coffee shops etc. Otherwise east davis really has zero walkable / bikable neighborhood amenities. But again, that pressure would come AFTER the entitlement of the property and as the city / planning comission is doing final approvals.
2) The traffic analysis, if anything is over-stated. This is not going to be a project that pulls in huge amounts of traffic from out of town as previous traffic studies have assumed. The reason is very logical: if you look at the companies that set up shop here in Davis, NONE of them are doing so without a good reason, or because the land here is cheap ( because it isn’t)
ALL of the companies that desire to set up operations in Davis are here to access our PEOPLE. Specifically the scientific talent you find amongst our citizens. That is universal amongst ALL of the tech companies you find here. So providing in-town commercial space really only means that we will have in-town places for in-town people to work. It will effectively keep people OFF of the causeway and 113, because right now their only choice is to LEAVE davis on a daily basis and work elsewhere.
That pattern of davis-based innovators living here and having to commute OUT of town every day happened to ME personally and to a number of other really valuable startups. So NOT providing in-town space for in-town talent just forces a car trip to elsewhere.
You’re apparently referring to space which is essentially subsidized, like this one:
http://www.agstart.org/sponsors.html
Good luck with that, “after-the-fact”. Again, your statement is an acknowledgement that you’re hoping that DiSC essentially subsidizes startup space.
Yeah – probably need to shut-down I-80 (and eliminate all onsite parking spots), for that to occur. Basically, Todd’s idea.
Using the bike/pedestrian path that they’re hoping is subsidized in 10 years or so by developing the “other half” of DISC. In the meantime, there would already be housing constructed at DiSC.
“After-the-fact”, again. That always works out “well”. 🙂
You’re disputing DISC’s “preferred” traffic studies? Really?
This is only the beginning, by the way. The traffic study does not include Palomino Ranch, Shriner’s, the “other half” of DISC, the spot inside the Mace curve, etc. And if the commercial is actually successful, the state’s RHNA housing requirements will increase.
They aren’t doing so at all. At least, not without a subsidy.
Yeah, gobs of people sitting-around, waiting for a business park to provide them with a career.
I worked for years in Sacramento, using YoloBus’ convenient commuter lines. Subsidized by my employer, to boot.
Not once did I wish or advocate for Davis to become a “mini-Sacramento”. It was a relief to get out of Sacramento, every evening.
Tell you what – they can “live and work” in Woodland’s planned “technology center”, with its 1,600 planned houses. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of those new residents “commuted” to DiSC, if it’s approved (and is actually commercially-viable).
Regardless, new residents to the area will increasingly seek-out surrounding less-expensive locales, due to rising housing prices everywhere. This is due to the fact that salaries are not keeping up with the rising cost of housing – anywhere. Which ultimately forces those new residents to seek (somewhat) lower-cost housing.
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“We effectively have a negative vacancy rate in this town at the moment for small-unit R&D space.”
This is pretty accurate assessment by Tim. I heard this week, that Tim himself was looking for additional space and unable to find it (correct me if I’m wrong about that) and that Ag Start is actually expanded beyond their initial site because the demand is so high.
Again, demand may be “high” when a facility is heavily-subsidized.
Do you not even read comments, anymore?
http://www.agstart.org/sponsors.html
I understand that one of the Vanguard’s former board members started this “non-profit” business.
Personally, I think the government should overhaul its definition (and requirements) of a “non-profit”. The category and benefits it provides seem to be abused, in regard to what most people have in mind regarding a non-profit.
If DiSC charges market-rate rent for startup space, how would that compare with rent at AgStart? (Again, assuming that DiSC even agrees to build it “after-the-fact” – as Tim Keller hopes for.)
VERY true story! Other than Target, the only two significant businesses that moved into Mace Industrial Park(north of Second Street) were DMG (first) then Mori Sekei… the two are joined at the hip… Davis beat out the Chicago area, to land Mori Sekei… DMG sited first, as the owner(s) was UCD grad, and most of his employees were UCD grads and residents… DMG was originally sited in W Sac, but they wanted to move to available property to be close to their core employees (and UCD)… if you don’t believe me, just ask the broker who worked with City staff to bring DMG (and Mori Sekei followed) to Davis.
Even though the property they acquired were within, or very close to, a “brownfields” site…
Keller is correct…
Chicago is a long way from “Davis grads”. I know that they did receive some tax breaks to locate in Davis. Was Chicago not willing to do this? (Seems like an odd combination of “competing cities”.)
Tim Keller is referring to startups, not established “big box” businesses.
Tell you what – if they want to be near “Davis grads”, how about this place?
http://woodlandresearchpark.org/
Or more to the point, how would DiSC “beat” this place? Does anyone claim with a straight face that they wouldn’t consider it, and that it’s not in direct competition with DiSC?
What would Davis have to offer, to “beat” it? Especially since the Woodland site has an enormous “head start”? Even though it too has no announced commercial tenants, as Alan Pryor noted? Several years after failing in Davis, and adding 1,600 homes during its “move”.
As well as West Sacramento, Dixon, Vacaville, etc.?
Whether this mis-statement was intentional or not, it is in fact wrong. It is wrong because the environment does not care what our average VMT/trip is; it cares what our total carbon output is. While this project may or may not reduce our average VMT/trip it will absolutely increase our total VMT; of that there is no question. It will therefore also increase our total carbon output.
This does NOT ‘move us in the right direction,’ it increases our negative environmental impact.
While the buildings and solar component are better than anything we’ve seen, they represent roughly a quarter of the environmental impact of this development. Roughly three quarters (actually 78% according to the EIR) of the environmental impact will be due to the cars for which this project is built.
It’s weird how people who so often champion some opinions based on environmental concerns are so quick to say that davis residents should be happy driving to the proposed woodland business park for their jobs.
Ron love to talk about the subsidized spaces like AgStart. Inventopia got a loan to start up which we are repaying – not a subsidy… but regardless.. NEITHER of those are what I’m talking about.
When I talk about a negative vacancy rate for small-space commercial, I am talking about complexes like the olive drive research park where rocknasium is. ( fully occupied ) or the small commercial / R&D complexes elsewhere, like next to the DMV, like here on Pena where inventopia currently is, and elsewhere distributed around town… all of those spaces where you have suite sizes on the order of 2,000 – 4,000 square feet are ALL full.
People have pointed out that there is “commercial vacancy” elsewhere – like the fact that the whole food space is still vacant.. but that is apples / organges. Its not commercial R&D space – its commercial – retail.
But let’s be honest. I’ve gone back and forth with Ron enough to know that I shouldnt really bother. He will say whatever is necessary to arrive at the conclusion that — Insert next development here — is bad, or is not necessary etc etc. I think I’m done arguing with people who are not interested in honest debate based on tangible facts. So I will leave the rest of his comments alone.
I stand my my belief that the net effect of Disc will be that more Davis companies will be able to STAH in Davis instead of having to commute out of town, and I stand by my statement that the larger companies, like schilling and DMG – we REALLY want to make space for them to be able to stay here permanently because they contribute SIGNIFCANT tax revenue to our city.
Im not okay with our city exporting our jobs and our tax-base. We have really ONE business opportunity as a city that is anything other than “provide services to support the university community” and that opportunity is to support the tech sector that naturally clusters around major research universities like UC Davis… Its time we embrace that as our mission and stop fighting it.
Certainly nothing that I’ve said. But the development in Woodland (along with its 1,600 homes) will proceed, regardless of what anyone prefers. I don’t know why you believe that new residents will seek homes in Davis, to work at a site in Woodland.
The addition of jobs generally accommodates NEW residents, not EXISTING residents who already work somewhere (or no longer need to work).
Nor do I know why you believe that new residents/workers at DiSC would live in Davis. Even the EIR acknowledges that many would live outside of Davis.
Government loans (that no private lender will provide) are subsidies.
Promise?
Not much difference between loans and VC. In the end, you need capital to launch a business. Unless your rich, you are looking for it from another source.
The DISC site is also not “retail” or “commercial”. In fact, it’s not even in the city.
Nor does it have any infrastructure in place, as sites such as Whole Foods have (e.g., gas lines, electricity, water, sewers, roads, sidewalks, existing building which needs a tenant, etc.).
Who says that all the jobs that move to disc don’t already exist? You are making an assumption that is incorrect.
I know lots of very valueable companies where the founders and key employees live here… but they set up shop in west sacramento because there is no commercial space here. Look at Origin materials… just went public and is worth ~1 billion… Davis founders, but west-sacramento company… BIG loss for the City of Davis.
I know two well funded startup companies RIGHT NOW where the employees are here in davis, but they are looking for space in adjoining towns because davis has NOTHING like the kind of commercial real estate supply we need.
That was MY life for 10 years. Started my company in Davis, commuted out of Davis to work because there wasn’t a place for us here. A number of my employees did that commute too. How does that make sense?
There are a lot of companies in that category. We almost lost Schilling robotics to west sac. Do you think if the company moves there then the people magically move there too? No. They stay in Davis. We just lose the benefit of the sales tax from the company… NOT a good tradeoff.
I will say it again: Nobody is going to set up operations at Disc unless their talent base isn’t also ALREADY here. NOBODY.
It will mean that we don’t lose any more companies to adjoining communities, and it means that we will hopefully be able to re-patriate some that couldn’t find space here previously.
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