Just ahead of a vote in the city of Davis to decide the issue in the June 7 primary election, a Yolo County agency approved the expansion of Davis' city limits to accommodate an office park.
Now it’s up to Davis voters, who narrowly rejected a much larger version of the same office park in 2020.
The Yolo County Local Agency Formation Commission on Thursday approved expanding Davis’ sphere of influence to include the 118-acre Davis Innovation & Sustainability Campus on the east side of town.
“This project brings many opportunities to the Davis community and our larger region. The approval of the modified sphere of influence by LAFCo is another significant step in the planning for this area near the city of Davis,” said Don Saylor, a Yolo County supervisor and LAFCo commissioner, in a news release.
The current version of the DISC project is 1.3 million square feet of commercial space, just less than half of the 2020 proposal.
The Davis Innovation and Sustainability Campus is proposed by Ramco Enterprises Inc. of West Sacramento in partnership with Buzz Oates of Sacramento.
The new proposal has 460 residential units, again about half of the previous proposal.
In numerous hearings over proposals to develop an office park just east of the Mace Ranch freeway exit, the loudest objections to the project have been over concerns about increased traffic.
If approved, DISC would be the first significant office and research development in Davis in 30 years. The developers have been working on the site at Mace Ranch Boulevard since 2014 when they were asked to do so by the city.
The city and developers see the research park as a way to leverage the commercialization of products and technology developed at the University of California Davis.
“The city solicited requests for locations to site an innovation park in 2014 and four were submitted,” the LAFCo staff report states. “The other three sites are either not available or no longer available for consideration.”
Davis has long had a shortage of large office and commercial real estate that is readily available. Some Davis companies have to move out of town to expand. TechnipFMC Plc (NYSE: FTI) had been looking at West Sacramento to expand its Shilling Robotics division of underwater robots. Just this week, it signed a lease for a 71,000-square-foot building that just came available in a nearby office park, which will allow it to stay in town.
"Our vacancy rate here is negative. With a few exceptions, the only property available is still occupied," said Tim Keller, founder of Inventopia, a Davis coworking space, makerspace and prototyping workshop. The coworking space is full and has a waiting list, and the companies that have outgrown Inventopia generally have had to move out of Davis to expand, he said.
"Schilling is taking the space that had been leased by DMG Mori Seiki, and I don't think that they are even out of there yet," Keller said, referring to the Japanese maker of machine tools. "That's the case in Davis. Buildings get marketed for lease while they are still occupied."
The Schilling operation has been in need of more space for years. The new lease allows the company to stay in the college town.
