The Sunnyvale Sun
News
NASA plans offices, rentals for Moffett
By Cody Kraatz
The NASA Ames Research Center is moving ahead with plans for a research park that will include as much as 200,000 square feet of new office space and 1,000 rental housing units on the south side of the complex, NASA officials said.
That could mean as many as 10,000 new jobs and 5,000 residents.
"The fundamental premise here is you can put diverse groups together and a synergistic result can come of it," said Michael Marlaire, director of partnerships. "Our goal from the very beginning was to use this impetus and this property to develop a world-class, shared-use research and development property with our partners from nonprofit, academia and industry."
The center planned to advertise to developers in November. It can build a total of 3 million square feet of office space and nearly 1,000 more housing units in the future.
Marlaire presented the plans to the Sunnyvale City Council on Oct. 23.
"Any additional housing for this area is a great thing," said Councilman Ron Swegles, who also chairs the Onizuka Local Redevelopment Authority, which is looking at possible uses for the 23-acre air station just east of Moffett that will be shut down by 2011.
"The biggest burden is going to be borne by Mountain View," he said, citing the increased demand on schools.
The council has emphasized it does not want to see commercial flights at Moffett.
NASA Ames took over Moffett Field from the Navy in 1994. It has partnered with high-tech companies and colleges, including the University of California, Santa Cruz, Carnegie Mellon University and the Foothill De Anza Community College District.
However, the historic core of Moffett Field, where officials plan to build the research park, is rundown and not quite ready to be the high-tech center of innovation officials envision.
Marlaire is full of optimism. UC-Santa Cruz is interested in developing the biggest chunk of the research park with classrooms, laboratories and housing, and has plans to conduct research there in a partnership with NASA.
The rental housing will go first to NASA workers and students or employees of institutions or companies there; second to federal and local government employees; third to local school district employees; and finally the general public.
Housing will range from 600 to 1,200 square feet, and 10 percent will be rented at below market rates. There is no security problem because there are two sets of fences at Moffett.
