Site is a designated natural reserve
James Ingallinera founded a company called Frontier Valley less than two weeks ago, and almost immediately called on President Donald Trump (via a post on X) to declare a national security emergency so he can instantly start building a 512-acre deregulated tech city on Alameda Point.
According to a KQED news report, Ingallinera said the goal is to accelerate the development of AI and robotics and to foster technological supremacy for the United States. In a promotional video he called it “the Manhattan project of our time.”
Ingallinera wants his tech city to be “a special jurisdiction independent from the Bay Area and the state, a form of zoning that would require an emergency declaration from President Trump,” a San Francisco Chronicle report explains. “Frontier Valley fits the template of a ‘Freedom City,’ or deregulated area meant to serve as a vast open-air laboratory for new technology.” During his presidential campaign, Trump released a video pitch to build 10 of them.
But the Alameda site Ingallinera wants for Frontier Valley is already in use—it’s currently a designated nature reserve. Plus, there are other plans already in the works for the area. The Department of Veterans Affairs owns 624 acres on Alameda Point and plans to build a 158,000-square-foot medical facility, a columbarium, and a VA service center there. The project already has been authorized and funded by Congress, with the Army Corps of Engineers overseeing construction. There’s also a 58-acre open space park being created there in partnership with East Bay Regional Parks District, as the Chronicle noted.
The would-be tech developer would have known all of that if he had contacted City officials—but he did not. When Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft learned of his plan, she called it a “head scratcher.” She told KQED, “They haven’t talked to the City at all.”
Nor does a national emergency make any sense to City officials.
“No reasonable fact supports the proposed declaration of emergency at Alameda Point,” Alameda Communications & Legislative Affairs Officer Sarah Henry said in a statement. “Since the closure of Naval Air Station Alameda, the City of Alameda has been successfully and collaboratively developing Alameda Point into a vibrant community of commercial, industrial, and residential uses, including many high-tech and biotech uses.”
Nevertheless, Ingallinera has big plans. As KTVU News reported, the Frontier Valley founder said in his promotional video, “Elon-level ambition is the bar. In this zone, we will all-out pursue and achieve the absolute most radical deep-tech moonshots that mankind can imagine, and beyond. Frontier Valley will be the home and the birthplace of a thousand new Elons, a thousand new Space Xs.”
