THE BUSINESS JOURNALS Select a City Sign In Silicon Valley Business Journal INDUSTRIES & TOPICS HOME NEWS LISTS & LEADS PEOPLE & COMPANIES EVENTS LEADERSHIP TRUST MORE… SEARCH SMALL BUSINESS RESOURCE GUIDE Coronavirus: Small businesses have questions. We have answers. LIMITED TIME OFFER Subscribe Now Commercial Real Estate Future of Fremont: What's happening in CRE and industrial in Bay Area's 4th largest city Email Share Share Tweet Share Article Print Order Reprints The Central district of Fremont as seen from the skies on July 25, 2020. This photo was taken by 111th Aerial & Architectural Photography. Enlarge The Central district of Fremont as seen from the skies on July 25, 2020. This photo was taken by 111th Aerial & Architectural Photography. 111TH AERIAL & ARCHITECTURAL PHOTOGRAPHY COMPANIES IN THIS ARTICLE CBRE Seattle, WA Real Estate $21.3B Revenue 36,363 Employees See full profile Fremont Bank Fremont, CA Banking $208.6M Revenue 921 Employees See full profile Zoox Inc. Foster City, CA Automotive 996 Employees See full profile Facebook Inc. Menlo Park, CA Internet $40.7B Revenue 48,268 Employees See full profile Overton, Moore & Associates, Inc. Gardena, CA See full profile Tesla Inc. Palo Alto, CA Automotive $24.6B Revenue 48,268 Employees See full profile By J. Jennings Moss – Editor-in-Chief and General Manager, Silicon Valley Business Journal Sep 25, 2020, 8:10am PDT Updated an hour ago Just in case you’re someone whose only knowledge of Fremont is marveling at the size of the Tesla factory off I-880 as you drive through the East Bay, here’s a short history lesson: Fremont isn’t really an old city. It was created in the 1950s when five smaller cities merged. Fremont, with its 77 square mile sprawl, is the second largest city by area in region. San Jose is more than twice that size while Oakland comes in third at nearly 56 square miles. Fremont is the fourth largest city by population with more than 214,000 residents in 2010. And, right now, it’s a city going through one of the biggest transformations of any Bay Area communities. The Warm Springs Innovation District has one of the biggest construction zones in the entire Bay Area as a residential community rises next to the Warm Springs Bart Station, with the promise of office and R&D projects to come. Fremont is building a new downtown with the intent of bringing more small businesses and residences to the center of the city. The Irvington district is starting to think ahead and prepping for a BART station that’s in the planning stages. And the Ardenwood district might just as well be renamed the Facebook district since the social media titan has scooped up what seems like every big commercial building there. As a way to illustrate more of what’s happening, here’s just some of what the Business Journal has reported over the last several weeks: This week, one southern California real estate player announced it was making its initial move into the Bay Area with plans to bring the first opportunity zone project to the downtown area, a multi-family residential development for 240 units. RECOMMENDED Also this week, Fremont-based Corsair Gaming Inc. raised $238 million in an IPO that valued the 26-year-old company at about $1.3 billion. Unlike other companies that have gotten a first-day surge, this one did take a 16 percent first-day tumble. But the CEO remains bullish. On Tuesday, Elon Musk once again showed why he’s Fremont’s most well-known figure when he led a most inventive “battery day” and told a crowd of people assembled at the factory all in their Teslas that the company was planning to produce a $25,000 version. Last week, the Business Journal named Overton Moore Properties as the Developer of the Year in our annual Structures Awards, largely because of the 1.7-million-square-foot industrial megaproject Pacific Commons South as well as its years-long commitment to Fremont. Among its coming tenants: Amazon, which is taking three-quarters of a million square feet. In August, a subsidiary of automaker Hyundai Motor Group said it would design an electric air vehicle in partnership with Uber Technologies Inc. And it will do so in an entire manufacturing/warehouse building at 401 Kato Terrace where Hyundai expects to employ between 100 and 200 people. In a special virtual event on Thursday, I explored more of what’s happening in Fremont in a pair of panels that especially focused on the city’s welcoming nature to industrial companies. The first panel had Christina Briggs, deputy city manager and Fremont economic affairs director, and CBRE executive vice president Rob Shannon offering an overview of the business and development picture. In the second panel, two business professionals — Evolve Manufacturing founder and CEO Noreen King and Ali Javidan, director of xOPS at Zoox — talk about what it is about Fremont that makes it conducive to running an advanced manufacturing company there. The event was sponsored by Fremont Bank and the city of Fremont. Click on the video above to watch the full event. Here are some time stamps if you’re trying to get to specific parts of the program: Welcome remarks by Kim Burdick, executive vice president and group executive for community banking at Fremont Bank: 9:01. Panel discussion with Christina Briggs and Rob Shannon: 13:17. Panel discussion with Noreen King and Ali Javidan: 36:25. Questions for Briggs: 1:02:00. 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