 Thanks for joining us here on The City Considerers at Davis Media Access. This is a show we produce monthly with volunteer assistance. And it is a show in which we take a look at things that are happening at the city council level and the city staff level. And today I am really happy to have as my guest Diane Parrow, who's the city's chief innovation officer. Welcome. Thank you, Otto. Now I think many people in the community know you from your work. You work for many years as deputy to county supervisor Don Taylor. Before that, the Yellow Visitors Bureau, you've been around for a while. Yes, I love Davis. Right. And you took on this new challenge in 2015, correct? Right. Just a little over two years ago, a couple years ago. Great. Well, what I remember, the conversation at that time seemed to be all about, in terms of innovation and economic development, seemed to be all about the Mace Ranch Innovation Center. And then that seemed to quiet down, but just before the show you were telling me that there was actually some big forward movement last night. So what's going on with that? Yes. Thank you for asking. Well, it was interesting because when I started, there were a couple of huge projects in the system, the Mace Ranch Innovation Center and also the Nishi Gateway Project. Right. So two big things that would have fairly dramatically changed what commercial space was available in Davis and what we might have to attract the kinds of businesses, startups, entrepreneurs, but also bigger companies that are interested in Davis. And Nishi Gateway did not pass a measure, our vote with the voters. And around the same time, the Mace Ranch Innovation Center put their application on hold. So it's not withdrawn, just went on hold and they were really being very intentional and thoughtful about how they might bring it forward and if they would bring it forward. So a number of months have gone by and last night they made an official request to council and council did vote to accept their request to move forward with certification of their EIR. And that's a huge milestone. The EIR is the environmental impact report that would be required for any project of that size under the California, let's see if I get this right, California Environmental Quality Act with CEQA, which everybody calls CEQA. And I'll just tell you a funny anecdote. I think the second or third week when I worked for the city, the draft EIR came out and they said, I hope it's not a big deal, Diane, could you just check these out? I don't know, people might want to read them. I didn't know what that meant and I imagined myself sitting at a counter and saying, okay, check. This is your copy. Well, the four volumes were heavier than I could carry and it took four volumes. So we'd get this huge box and I'd check it out to them. One gentleman picked it up on his bicycle. There are people in Davis that did read the entire document. Thank goodness they gave comments. Comments were answered in the draft and then the final report was issued. And so request to have it certified is somewhat unusual and that there's not a project active, but it's not out of the question. So the council took that action last night and it may, in fact, lead to those applicants reinvigorating their application. But right now it remains to be seen if they'll do that. But the step they took keeps the possibility alive, essentially. It does, it does. It was shining from my perspective because I like to see things in Davis move forward as long as they're intentional and as long as they're what the community wants and transparent and all of that. Exactly. So talking more broadly about innovation, for those maybe not following the issue, what is an innovation center? Well, everyone in our entire, gosh, most of North California will say, you should be part of our community because we are near UC Davis. UC Davis is so important in research to the world. Sure. So everyone tries to capitalize on the type of research they're doing, on the spin-offs that will come out, on the amazing, they're not even just inventing things, but ideas, techniques, changing the world. And that type of industry often starts out with a small, maybe even just a few people in a lab space or another, I mean, we talk about them being in their garage or in their attic or their bedroom developing apps. So we would like to be able to capture everything from the small start-up, which may be spinning out from UC Davis or maybe other brilliant people who are all around us in our community. But then you need space for what happens next. What happens when they get to be 10 employees and they're getting venture capital and now they're actually making money and now they're contributing to the workforce and they need lawyers and they need insurance agents and all the things we'd like our business-to-business community to. So we'd like to be able to keep them. And when we have a huge homerun, like a Shilling Robotics or something that is a national expert, but he wants to actually build his facility here, we need space for it. And we want to be welcoming. And we want to be welcoming. So Mace Innovation Center, Mace Ranch Innovation Center, excuse me, would have provided much more of all those types of spaces. And it was designed to be the kind of space that is geared to networking, to idea sharing, to have open spaces where people might gather. And it was a really great design. And again, we'll see what happens. I don't want to make anyone think I'm so for it that it should be moved forward without the intention that Davis has. But there would still be, on any application that they would bring forward on that space, there would still be a measure R4 vote. So the community still has many chances to weigh in. Again, not holding us back to one tiny baby step forward. Meanwhile, there's other things happening. And I know you touched on University Research Park and Sierra Energy Area 52. Yes. So talk about those. And another one that I remembered today called Inventopia. So that's fun. Inventopia. Inventopia. So two things sort of happened around the time that Mesa Innovation Center put their project on hold. And Nishi was known pretty clearly to not be going forward. We changed our strategy pretty dramatically, one, towards business retention, which means go out and thank all the fantastic businesses we have for being in Davis, talk about growth, talk about impediments. So we made that our highest priority. I've been to so many amazing places with our mayor, with our city manager, with Sarah Warley, my colleague. And we thank them first for having their business in Davis. And then we ask them, what's on your mind? What can we do to help you? And we have learned important things. And we've taken important steps. But we're talking about employers anywhere from the wardrobe, a small local dress shop, to Sutter Davis, one of the region's largest health care provider. One of our largest employers, the Nugget Markets, where they made us lunch. That was one of my good favorite business visits. University Honda we met with. And we learned that this was their 25th year. So we honored them last night at council also for 25 years of something to celebrate. That's amazing. That's success. So we're doing a lot of business outreach. And it's not, I don't want you to think that wasn't done at the city before I got there. It's just it does take a lot of time to move forward these big projects. Sure, it takes someone to drive it, too. So we hunkered down and said, OK, now we do the basics. But at the same time, things happen in Davis. You could put your head down and be disappointed that something didn't happen. And in the meantime, University Research Park used to be called Innerland. It's been here for a long time. Not much attention paid to it. So down on Cowell Boulevard? Research. Yeah, Cowell Research Park Drive. It was sold. And a new owner who has a ton of energy, Mark Friedman, out of Fulcrum Properties. Some of his business partners are some of our local favorites, Jim Gray, Nazan Fary, and some others. Super energetic. Investing in Davis, investing in making University Research Park a great home for the kinds of businesses that we dream to have. We're keeping them happy thanks to them. We have Nova Zimes in there. We have our own Biosciences in there now. We have Blue Oak Energy, one of the nation's largest solar providers. It's really become a hub down there. I notice that. It's fantastic. So we're so excited to have new owners that are really catering to, again, businesses that have grown up with us in Davis. But they're doing investing. They're working with the city. They're working with the developer. And they are going to make enhancements. They're going to have some new and exciting additions to that park. Wonderful. Incrementally and appropriately, but again, if you can't have the giant big park, you have important steps towards getting these. Well, you can start where you are. Which, from everything you just said to me, it sounds like let's build on what we have. Right. And it's exciting. Yeah. So tell us about Area 52 and the link between Sierra Energy. Right. So lots of people who have been in Davis for a long time will remember the Molar Flying Car. Yes. Remember the Molar Flying Car. Paul Molar. So another example of a place in Davis that had just been there so long that we stopped paying attention to it. Down on Research Park Drive, kind of around the bend, out of the way. And Mike Hart, who owns Sierra Energy, has a huge vision, big, big vision, lots of success in different things, mostly energy related. And he purchased that property. And as a fund spin on the whole flying car sort of coolness, they called it Area 52. Right. Kind of a makerspace, right? Well, Sierra Energy Research Park is sort of the umbrella. And Area 52 is part of it. But there will be other parts. So Area 52 will certainly be like a fund makerspace, tinker space, prototyping. But the vision, and I've seen it a couple of times, and it's pretty exciting, is that, because it's large, I mean, flying car, took up a lot of space, had a wind tunnel in there. It was a pretty amazing space. An event center, a place for co-working, a place for research labs. Engineering labs. This is all a bit in the early stages, because some construction will be happening. Again, working with the city on what those plans look like. But when it starts unfolding in phases, it will also be another amazing place for people to land when they want to stay in Davis because of our huge intellectual capital and other things. And so Inventopia. Inventopia is a fun small version of that, which is already open. So we're on Fifth Street, just opened. And it's about 1,000 square feet of co-working, makerspace. Let's do some prototyping. Let's just do something. With a name that sounds like it came out of Disneyland. They actually had some early tenants in a different space, but they let them vote. And they came up with Inventopia, which I like a lot. And they were already talking about expanding and what the next iteration might look like for them. So again, you could rent a bench there to bigger. These are the ways I think we're going to keep Davis progressing and really engaged with the biotech, the ag tech, everything. And we're not going to blow it up. We're just going to keep doing it our way. And on that note, we only have a couple minutes left. And I want to make sure we touch on broadband, and specifically the broadband advisory task force, the city convene last year, on which I represent. Davis Media Access. We're so lucky to have you. And you are a staff liaison for that. And can you, in one minute, encapsulate our work today? Everybody in Davis, every business owner, every resident wants a better broadband. We want it faster. We want it cheaper. So many smart people here. We needed to come together with the brain power we have in Davis, people like you, Autumn, and figure out how could we do that? So we have a study. Council was forward thinking enough to fund that. We were going to determine the feasibility of broadband for everyone. And until we see the study, I don't know the answer. But we're very fortunate to be again in the place where we can study it, and we can come up with facts, at least to make our next step. I've had a lot of people ask me about it too. And one of my replies is that this is not a quick thing. We are really looking at, you know, we're really looking five years out in terms of, three to five years out in terms of developing, figuring out how it's all going to work, and building it out. And it's potentially a lot of money too. It's a lot of money. And what I have to say is if it was going to be easy, it would have been done already. Exactly. And it's not easy, but again, very fortunate to be in the kind of city that will fund, study, to even figure out what we should do. Let's figure it out together, and I'm grateful to you and the other volunteers. Well, and on that note, you know, it meets the fourth Wednesdays at 6.30 in the conference room and at City Hall, and people do, they come by, and they're just interested and they come by and they hear what we all have to say. So, well, I know we're getting down to the end of our time. We could talk for days, but I really appreciate you coming and sharing an update about the important work you're doing at the city with our viewers. And I want it to let anyone know who's watching that of course you can go to cityofdavis.org, and you can type in broadband. You can type in innovation, and you can, you know, get linked up with Diane and the work that is happening at the city. So thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, Otto. It was fun. All right, take care. Thanks for tuning in to The City Considerers here at Davis Media Access, and we'll see you next time.