October 27, 1995 Contact: Robert Irion (408/459-2495)

NEW CONTRACT WILL PROMOTE REDEVELOPMENT IN MONTEREY BAY REGION BY GUIDING TECHNOLOGY CENTER AT FORT ORD

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CRUZ, CA--"If you build it, they will come." That may work in Hollywood fantasies, but it rarely holds true in the harsh reality of today's business world. Many new ventures fail for lack of clients after sparkling new buildings are in place. Such failures are most painful when the venture is an ambitious "research park," carrying the promise of revitalizing a depressed region by bringing in new industries and new jobs.

That's why organizers of the University of California's Monterey Bay Education, Science, and Technology (MBEST) Center at the former Fort Ord military reservation are taking such care to plan ahead, and plan well. They are investing redevelopment funds from the federal government in defining the myriad strengths of the Monterey Bay Area and creating a blueprint to help guide the growth of the MBEST Center--and the economic rebirth of the region--over a period likely to last decades.

This month, project managers at UC Santa Cruz, lead campus behind the MBEST Center, hired the San Francisco-based Economic Competitiveness Group at DRI/McGraw-Hill to begin working toward those goals. The consulting firm will bring its international experience to bear on a thorough study of the existing assets of the Monterey Bay region, including its many research and teaching institutions. The consultants will analyze the needs of the industries and agencies that planners would like to attract to the MBEST Center and elsewhere, and will advise how to market the region most effectively to those potential customers.

"We are looking to DRI/McGraw-Hill to help us identify the competitive advantages of the Monterey Bay region and the MBEST Center," says Lora Lee Martin, the center's director of program and policy development. "We know this project can draw upon the strengths of the entire region, including Silicon Valley. What we need to understand is how to compete more aggressively to attract the kinds of industries that will help this region position itself for the coming century."

James Gill, associate vice chancellor for research at UCSC, notes that economic forecasts about the reuse of Fort Ord point to the MBEST Center as the largest single generator of new jobs. Indeed, even before Fort Ord closed, regional officials identified the MBEST Center as one of the cornerstones to the successful reuse of the property, along with the new California State University, Monterey Bay.

"This evaluation by DRI/McGraw-Hill will assist us in planning strategies to attract private businesses and government agencies to the center," says Gill, who directs the UC Fort Ord Project. "It also will help local planners do the same by providing, for the first time, extensive field testing of the interests of technology companies in the Monterey Bay region."

For its services over the next nine months, DRI/McGraw-Hill will receive $325,049 from the UC Fort Ord Project. By the end of November, project managers expect to sign another contract, for a similar amount, with a consulting firm that will assemble a coordinated business plan with realistic economic projections, as well as a revised master plan for land use. A $1.2 million grant from the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce, received in March 1995, will pay for the two contracts and for other planning efforts for the MBEST Center.

Planners have identified four "market niches" around which activities at the MBEST Center will revolve. Chosen for their relation to existing regional strengths and for their growth potential, the niches are environmental science, technology, and instrumentation, especially coastal applications; biotechnology, emphasizing agricultural and marine applications; information science and technologies; and multimedia education and entertainment materials.

Directing the analysis of these market niches will be James Gollub of DRI/McGraw-Hill's Economic Competitiveness Group. Gollub leads several projects for DRI on creating strategies to revitalize areas affected by military closures, including a new project in Los Angeles and a recently completed project for California State University, Long Beach. He was the initial consultant to the Joint Venture: Silicon Valley initiative and has worked on other economic restructuring projects in the midwestern U.S., New York, eastern Europe, Japan, China, and India.

Gollub expects to offer perspective to UCSC planners on the ever-changing global marketplace for major projects such as the MBEST Center. "Technology parks do best when they are viewed as integral to a broader set of actions intended to reinforce the economy, not simply as industrial islands," he says. "But such development efforts frequently fail when their sponsors are guilty of the 'field of dreams syndrome' in which, because of good faith and inspiration, sponsors invest and build, believing that industries will choose to come--which they may not, or may take 25 years to do. Supply, no matter how beautiful, does not equal demand."

Gollub and his team will study both sides of that equation, driven by the four market niches. They will refine the niches and determine their potential as attractors to businesses and institutions in the region, nationally, and globally. Then, they will scrutinize what the Monterey Bay region has to offer prospective industries and agencies, from human resources and accessible technology to financing, infrastructure, acceptable taxes and regulations, and quality of life for workers. Finally, they will make specific proposals for how the MBEST Center and the region can take advantage of the most likely market trends.

"Our client is not just the MBEST Center, but the region," Gollub adds. "We'll be acting locally, but thinking regionally. This is a regional initiative, and we want to identify the assets of the region and use them to the best effect."

DRI/McGraw-Hill, based in San Francisco, will subcontract with several other firms on portions of the market niche plan. They include Economic & Planning Systems of Berkeley, Applied Development Economics of Berkeley and Sacramento, and DMS Research & Consulting of Santa Cruz. Richard Gordon, associate professor of politics at UCSC and director of UCSC's Silicon Valley Research Group, also will advise on the project.

The U.S. Army has conveyed or will convey about 1,040 acres at Fort Ord to the University of California, about 435 acres of which are developable for the MBEST Center. UC will preserve the remainder as unique coastal chaparral habitat through the UC Natural Reserve System and the Campus Reserve System of UCSC.

Early plans for the center call for five to seven million square feet of space for research and development, industry, offices, retail, education, and housing, constructed over a period extending through the year 2045. Previous consultants have concluded that the center's activities could support 3,000 new jobs over the next 20 years, and ultimately about 12,000 jobs. Both the market niche plan and the business plan will refine those projections considerably.

Lora Lee Martin, who serves as a nonvoting member of the Fort Ord Reuse Authority (FORA), says both plans will emphasize collaboration with other jurisdictions in the Monterey Bay region, including those most immediately affected by the base closure. "We want to create a center that will attract new companies and agencies, while working closely with others such as FORA and the Monterey Bay Futures Network so that all of our projects mesh well," Martin says. "Our goal is to contribute to the strength of the regional economy, from one end of the Monterey Bay research crescent to the other."

Editor's note: For further comment, contact any of the following sources:

James Gill: (408) 459-2425 or jgill@earthsci.ucsc.edu Lora Lee Martin: (408) 459-3652 or loralee@ua.ucsc.edu James Gollub: (415) 445-9622 or jgollub@ccmaillex.dri.mgh.com

This release is also available on UC NewsWire, the University of California's electronic news service. To access by modem, dial (209) 244-6971.

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