The Sacramento City Council will consider targeting $100 million toward the development of a larger California Mobility Center near the California State University Sacramento campus.
The money would come from Citizens’ Transportation Tax Initiative on the November ballot in Sacramento County or other sources, according to a city staff report.
The current California Mobility Center opened in 2020 in 25,000 square feet in Depot Park, a business park on Fruitridge Road in the Power Inn Road area.
But from the start, the plan has been to develop a larger center just south of Sac State as part of the planned 240-acre Sacramento Center for Innovation on Ramona Avenue.
The aim of the center is to grow a clean-mobility industry in Sacramento and provide more job opportunities for Sacramento residents. That is the reasoning the City Council will consider at its meeting Tuesday.
Barry Broome, CEO of the Greater Sacramento Economic Council, said Sacramento is positioned to take advantage of California’s momentum in clean mobility, adding that the connection of the engineering schools of the two local universities with the California Mobility Center could be a catalyst to develop carbon-free technologies for the world.
“We want to build modern industries here,” he said.
The first phase of the larger Mobility Center on Ramona Avenue is anticipated to cost $120 to build, Broome said. He added that it's one of the region’s goals to expand its employment base beyond government jobs.
The resolution by the City Council would commit it to secure up to $100 million for the center along with related uses. The money would be divided among several goals. Up to $65 million is sought in matching funds for the development and construction of the center, $15 million is for equipment and furnishings, $15 million would go toward advancing the city’s climate action goals related to clean mobility, and $5 million would go to advancing equity and inclusivity in the clean mobility workforce.
The California Mobility Center has partners including the city; Sac State, which is contributing $8 million worth of land to the project; University of California Davis; the Greater Sacramento Economic Council; the Los Rios Community College District; and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which has already committed $15 million to the center.
If voters approve the local tax measure, it would raise sales tax in the county by a half percent for 40 years. Current sales tax rates in the city of Sacramento are 8.75% and they are 7.75% in Sacramento County and Folsom.
The California Mobility Center, a California nonprofit public benefit corporation, has already developed a prototyping lab that has tools and equipment to help companies build out their technology. It has also developed programs for workforce training and development.
The center has more than 30 tenants and clients, including Mountain View-based Amply Power; Minnesota-based Zeus Electric Chassis Inc.; Guelph, Ontario-based manufacturer Linamar Corp.; and Oak Park, Michigan-based manufacturer Bollinger Motors Inc. It also has utility members, including SMUD, Southern California Edison and Alectra Utilities of Canada.
The center has a partnership with PEM Motion of Aachen, Germany, which has a transportation prototyping center that is the model for the Sacramento effort.
In July, the center won $2 million in federal funding for its Advanced Manufacturing Career Pathways Program, an effort for technical training for advanced manufacturing jobs, and careers in electric mobility and clean technology.
