Business & Tech

City Should Go For Tech, Say Two Execs

In this guest column from the San Leandro Chamber of Commerce, two local business leaders give their views on what kinds of businesses the city should attract and how.

By Fred Reicker, San Leandro Chamber of Commerce

Invigorating San Leandro’s business community and restoring city government to fiscal health were cited as key challenges and priorities by Mayor Stephen Cassidy in his State of the City address at our April members lunch. 

Noting that San Leandro’s unemployment rate was 10 percent, Cassidy stated, “Job creation must be a priority,” together with promoting sound business development and supporting existing businesses. 

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That means finding a way to attract more technology-based companies said OSIsoft CEO Patrick Kennedy in an interview. 

“Create the kind of ‘geek’ environment they crave,” he urged. “Giga Byte internet links, connections to telecom and data centers, good transportation, schools and other features that also enhance the lives of residents. 

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“Also, we should leverage the historic advantages of San Leandro from agriculture to ‘repurposable’ land from the last generation’s factories and foundries," Kennedy said. "We’ve moved into a new era, but San Leandro is still here, and its future will, must be different.

The city already has the infrastructure for traditional manufacturing. The addition of high speed communication and a cloud data center will upgrade it to manage the next generation of manufacturing," Kennedy said.

Technology has transformed manufacturing as it is usually understood, Kennedy explained. 

“Much of business is now based on intellectual property such as software. The other potentially ‘disruptive technologies’ are computers, material science and biotechnology, all strong suits of this area," he said. 

“Manufacturing can be geographically dispersed taking advantage of the special attributes of each.” 

Kennedy offered as an example Toyota’s purchase of a share of Tesla motors. Toyota is manufacturing its new electric vehicle in Fremont, leveraging its software expertise, and having a design center in  Southern California.

Kennedy believes many businesses of the future, including those that contain a manufacturing element, will be unlike what exist today. 

Asked for an example relevant to San Leandro, Kennedy described  3D Printing, a still maturing but fast converging technology.

“It’s new manufacturing technique that permits the manufacture of items directly from the CAD drawings. Picture the manufacture of a replacement skull fragment based on the digital signals from a neurosurgeon as he removes some skull during surgery. Other examples would be models for developers,” he said. 

Reminded that San Leandro is not in Silicon Valley, Kennedy replied, “Not every start-up can afford $3 million for a small house, even if available. Then, there’s the cost of manufacturing space for things like fuel cells, batteries and solar cells on Page Mill Road. 

We have low-price land, centrally located with access to great transportation. The next—you name it—is looking for low cost facilities right now,” he said. 

Support for this view comes from another executive, William Fleissig, CEO of TRANSACT

“San Leandro should be in the middle of this,” he said. “There are strong development opportunities west of downtown. Technology companies like those on the Peninsula are looking to locate near transit and in walkable neighborhoods. I’ve talked to tech people about San Leandro. They said they hadn’t thought about it but it sounded interesting.” 

Fleissig’s company advises property owners, transit agencies, communities and employers about maximizing property values around transit areas. 

He has been asked by Bay Fair’s owners to bring a “fresh set of eyes” to the use of the mall and the development potential of the properties near it and the BART station. “We want to see if there’s a way to leverage this area and help achieve the mayor’s objectives,” he explained. 

Fleissig cited an illustrative effort. Called  “Malls into Mainstreets”, it helps mall owners adjust to changes in shopping habits and the new needs and priorities of potential employers. This includes reconfiguring the retail spaces and finding ways to bring huge parking areas and surrounding properties to higher, more profitable uses. 

Several dated malls, including one each in Pasadena and Long Beach, have been successfully transformed to include a varying mix of retail, offices, rental and owned housing, theaters, parks, plazas and pedestrian walkways.


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