For years, the identities of investors in large land purchases in Solano County, California have been shrouded in secrecy.
Some government officials and residents believed the investment company, generally known as Flannery Associates, might even be a foreign entity planning nefarious activities or an amusement park, and asked the federal government to research.
However the mystery was solved over the weekend when Flannery revealed that it was, in reality, backed by a variety of high-profile Silicon Valley executives, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman; former Sequoia Capital partner Michael Moritz; and enterprise capitalists Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon, and Lauren Powell Jobs, daughter or Steve Jobs, based on a report within the Wall Street Journal.
Their grand plan is to show the mostly agricultural area into an inexpensive and sustainable latest city, based on Flannery representative Brian Brokaw.
“We’re proud to partner on a project that goals to deliver good-paying jobs, reasonably priced housing, clean energy, sustainable infrastructure, open space, and a healthy environment to residents of Solano County,” Brokaw said in a statement. “We’re excited to begin working with residents and elected officials, in addition to with Travis Air Force Base, on making that occur.”
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Building a latest city from scratch
In accordance with a report in The Latest York Times, Flannery has spent nearly $800 million over the past five years on land in Solano, which is 60 miles northeast of San Francisco and residential to the Travis Air Force Base.
They’ve methodically purchased large pieces of property from landowners, sometimes way above market value.
The project is being quietly led by Jan Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trader with deep connections within the tech world. His vision is to take the arid rural land and transform it into a bustling urban community with tens of 1000’s of homes with clean energy.
Some pushback from the community
Not everyone has been excited by Flannery’s activity in the world. The Air Force had been investigating the corporate for months, and state representatives had also called for the National Committee on Foreign Investment within the U.S. to research. A gathering has been called for next week.
Meanwhile, there have been some contentious legal dealings in the world. In May, Flannery sued landowners in the world, accusing them of colluding to drive up real-estate prices. The case has left a sour taste in lots of’s mouths.
“Flannery Associates has developed a very bad popularity in Solano County through their total secrecy and mistreatment of generational family farmers,” state representative John Garamendi Garamendi said in a statement.