While still barely a gleam in the governor’s eye, plans to try to bring the World Expo 2020 to Silicon Valley inched forward Saturday, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger formally announced his bid during a visit to the Shanghai World Expo and identified Moffett Field as the host site.
“Shanghai has demonstrated that when you host the World Expo, the world comes to you, and I want the world to come to California,” Schwarzenegger reportedly said before touring the U.S. pavilion. “Our state is a leader in entertainment, agriculture, the environment, high tech, green tech and biotech, and we are ready to showcase our innovation to the world.”
Joined by Jim Wunderman, head of the Bay Area Council who first proposed the idea and has been spearheading the effort, Schwarzenegger called Silicon Valley “the hub of innovation” and said it was “the most natural place to hold the expo, which will promote the international exchange of ideas, create jobs and increase revenues in our state,” according to an advance release.
Typically held every five years, world expos can bring tens of millions of visitors to see hundreds of pavilions hosted by countries and individual corporations. Once described as a platform for “nation branding,” an expo can also cost a ton of money — the council said the Chinese government spent $4.2 billion on the Shanghai event, although much of that went to major improvements to the city’s highways and transit infrastructure.
“Obviously, we are not going to be able to replicate that,” said a person familiar with the Bay Area’s proposal. “But we feel we have the muscle in this region to make a substantial bid that would definitely live up to Shanghai’s, even though it’s done for a lower cost.”
Organizers said the funding would primarily be private, although the use of public funds is not being ruled out. Countries hosting pavilions would contribute a share of the cost, and then a fundraising committee would be put together to lobby support from foundations, corporations and private donors.
“The World Expo is the Olympic Games of the economic, scientific and industrial world, and we think it is time for Silicon Valley to serve as an ambassador for the United States and host this event,” Wunderman said. “For 30 years, the Bay Area and Silicon Valley have been the pre-eminent hot spots for the innovation that drives the world’s technological advances. Imagine what a Silicon Valley Expo will look like when we put all of the region’s collective brainpower to work.”
The council settled on Moffett Field, the former bayside naval air station decommissioned in 1994, after ruling out former military properties at Alameda, Mare Island and Treasure Island. One of the drivers was the involvement of the nonprofit University Associates-Silicon Valley, created by the Regents of the University of California in 2008 to partner with its co-tenant at Moffett, the NASA Ames Research Center, and to eventually create an academic center on the property.
Bringing an expo — and all of the state-of-the-art buildings that would be left behind — makes sense, University Associates President William Berry said. “My understanding is that the permanent facilities would be on our site,” a 77-acre slice of the property. “The expo would be an exciting opportunity, but we’ll have to see how it evolves. But with permanent structures based on our site, and our overall goal to create a sustainable campus, this is a godsend.”
Although organizers talk in their news release about a six-month expo generating “tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of jobs for host regions” and leaving a huge net economic benefit, possibly in the billions of dollars, their announcement Saturday was short on specifics. Beyond some rough renderings of how the site would fit into Moffett, there were no detailed drawings, no cost-and-benefit projections and no indication of how the money to put on the expo would be raised. Organizers say NASA Ames is interested in the project, though the agency did not immediately return calls.
And while their site drawing lists a “Google Pavilion,” as the search giant’s campus is nearby, the organizers say they have yet to reach out to see whether Google is interested.
But it’s a start, says former Olympian Anne Cribbs, head of the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee and a veteran of earlier attempts to bring the Olympics to the Bay Area.
“It’s too early to know the scope of funding that would be involved in hosting an expo,” she said. “But we’re certainly interested in anything that brings people, travelers and visibility to this great region. We’d love to host the world here.”
Contact Patrick May at 408-920-5689.
