February 12, 1996 Contact: Robert Irion (408) 459-2495; irion@ua.ucsc.edu

BERKELEY-BASED FIRM PREPARING BUSINESS PLAN FOR UC'S TECHNOLOGY CENTER AT FORT ORD

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CRUZ, CA--Work is under way on the second of two major planning efforts to define the future of the University of California's innovative MBEST Center--the Monterey Bay Education, Science, and Technology Center at the former Fort Ord military reservation.

A consulting team headed by Economic & Planning Systems, a land-economics firm based in Berkeley, is preparing a comprehensive land-use and business plan for the MBEST Center. Over the next several months, the team will chart a course for the research and technology center grounded in the economic realities of the marketplace, the needs of the Monterey Bay region, the physical features of the site, and other practical concerns.

Project managers at UC Santa Cruz, lead campus in developing the MBEST Center, hired Economic & Planning Systems late last year. The firm's efforts will go hand in hand with those of the Economic Competitiveness Group at DRI/McGraw-Hill, which began work last October on a marketing study of the region's competitive assets. Together, the two planning initiatives will lead to a long-range blueprint for the MBEST Center--a blueprint that UCSC administrators will present to the UC Board of Regents next year.

"The Regents have asked us to develop a project that is market driven, financially feasible, and self-sustaining," says Mark Coburn, the center's director of technology transfer and business planning. "It must build on the competitive strengths of UC Santa Cruz and the UC system, and it must make positive contributions to the economy of the Monterey Bay region and the state. The business plan will flesh out our concepts for the MBEST Center in all of these areas."

The U.S. Army has conveyed or will convey about 1,090 acres at Fort Ord to the University of California. UCSC's plans call for developing the industrial research and technology center on 485 acres. The remaining 605 acres will become part of the UC Natural Reserve System, preserved as unique coastal chaparral.

Current projections for the MBEST Center envision several million square feet of space in new buildings for research and development, industry, offices, retail, education, and lodging, constructed over the next 40 to 50 years. Existing studies have concluded that the center's activities could support several thousand new jobs during the next 20 years and potentially up to 12,000 jobs, making the center the largest single generator of employment at the former base. As such, regional officials point to the MBEST Center and the adjoining California State University, Monterey Bay, as the cornerstones to the successful reuse of the property and to the economic rebirth of the region.

The UC Fort Ord Project team has identified four "market niches" around which growth at the MBEST Center will revolve: environmental science, technology, and instrumentation, especially coastal applications; biotechnology, emphasizing agricultural and marine applications; information science and technologies; and multimedia education and entertainment. The team chose those areas for their connections to existing regional strengths and for their growth potential.

The Economic & Planning Systems study will explore the logistical details of how to bring the center into being. "The business plan will be a strategic blueprint to help link Fort Ord and the Monterey Bay region to emerging high-technology markets," says James Musbach, lead consultant on the MBEST study. Musbach's team will focus on the following:

-- A revised master plan for land use.

-- A strategic development plan for the first five years of the project.

-- A comprehensive business plan, with short-term and long- term projections of the financial resources--predominantly generated from the project itself--needed for the center to flourish.

-- Agreements and jurisdictional understandings with neighboring governments.

-- A telecommunications plan for making the center a hub of advanced communications infrastructure and technologies.

-- Strategies for marketing, developing, and operating the center, and for communicating with legislators, financiers, and other key audiences.

Economic & Planning Systems, one of the leading business development consulting firms in northern California, has an established track record in real-estate economics, regional economic development, and public finance. Consultants at the firm have worked extensively on major reuse projects at military bases throughout California and at the Stapleton International Airport and the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant in Colorado. Subcontractors on the business plan include the ROMA Design Group and DRI/McGraw-Hill, both of San Francisco, and DMS Research & Consulting of Santa Cruz.

For its services, Economic & Planning Systems will receive $335,000 from the UC Fort Ord Project. A $1.2 million grant from the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce, received in April 1995, will pay for this and other planning initiatives for the MBEST Center.

Editor's note: You may reach Mark Coburn at (408) 459-5278 or mcoburn@cats.ucsc.edu, or James Gill, director of the UC Fort Ord Project, at (408) 459-2425 or jgill@earthsci.ucsc.edu.

This release is also available on the World Wide Web at UCSC's "Services for Journalists" site (http://www.ucsc.edu/news/journalist.html) or via modem from UC NewsWire (209/244-6971).

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