A fisherman operates his boat near the Solano Yacht Club in Suisun City, Calif., in January. California Forever is planning to become part of Suisun City’s expansion project to create its new city.
Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
More than a year after pulling the plug on a ballot initiative to create a city in eastern Solano County, California Forever has submitted new “detailed plans for America’s next great American city.”
Jan Sramek, CEO of California Forever, said on social media platform X on Tuesday that the plan would include a shipyard, “America’s largest manufacturing park,” as well as “walkable neighborhoods for 400,000 Californians.”
“California used to do big things. From rockets in the Mojave to chips in Silicon Valley. California dreamed. California designed. California built,” he wrote. “But then we stopped. To lead again we need a place that can capture the imagination of the nation. Solano can be that place.”
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1/ 🇺🇸 Today, @CAForever submitted detailed plans for the next great American city, an hour north of Silicon Valley, including: Solano Foundry, America’s largest manufacturing park, Solano Shipyard, our largest shipyard, and walkable neighborhoods for 400,000 Californians. pic.twitter.com/Dj1Cd5v6as
— Jan Sramek 🇺🇲 🌁 ⛰️ (@jansramek) October 14, 2025
While the land use plan for the utopian metropolis proposed by some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent billionaires is the same as the one submitted in 2024, there is one big difference: Rather than create an entire new city, the community will be an extension of Suisun City, a town of about 30,000 that has been grappling with severe budget deficits in recent years.
By making the city “part of the Suisun Expansion Project” California Forever can avoid the approval of Solano voters required by the county’s organized growth initiative, which requires that any urban development in unincorporated parts of the county be approved by ballot initiative. Instead, it will require approval of the Suisun City Council and the Solano Local Agency Formation Commission, known as LAFCO.
“Suisun City stepped up and proposed building the city as part of the Suisun Expansion Project. They are now on their way to becoming California’s best example of the ‘abundance agenda,’” Sramek said, referencing the state’s policy movement of solving various crises.
Cousins Josh Scrivner, 14, left, and John Barboza, 14, play basketball on Suisun St. at sunset in Suisun City in January.
Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
While the change will likely create an easier path for approval for the project, Sramek touted it as the solution to a “generational problem” faced by Suisun City, which he described as “Solano’s smallest city by area” which has been “landlocked for decades” and “closed off from growth and opportunity.”
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Sramek said California Forever is also in conversation with Rio Vista about that city expanding into part of the group’s land.
Also in a video posted on X Tuesday Suisun City City Manager Bret Prebula said staff “has deemed the California Forever application complete.”
“We have taken in the application. We have taken in the applicable fee,” he said. “I really appreciate the work that California Forever has done to this point in the months that we have been having high level conversations with them about our interest in jobs and housing and transportation and the need to have open space. They have really listened.”
📄 Suisun City has received a formal application for annexation and development from California Forever. Staff has conducted the initial review of the application and deemed it to be complete and eligible for the next step in processing.
Application: https://t.co/kBCSbfiPZN. pic.twitter.com/jlW32rKYas
— Suisun City, Calif. (@SuisunCity) October 14, 2025
He said there would be a scoping meeting to start the environmental review process and on Oct. 27 there will be a public meeting on the project.
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Former Solano County Supervisor Duane Kromm, a leading opponent of the plan, said “we all knew this was coming, it was just a question of when and what it would look like.”
He said the LAFCO approval process would not be a rubber stamp.
“The current Solano LAFCO has beefed up and has their game together,” he said. “They will do a deep dive.”
A runner exercises at Mike Day Memorial Park in Suisun City in January.
Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
While the Board of Supervisors will not vote on the annexation, the body will still have to sign off on a tax revenue sharing agreement between the county and Suisun City that must be negotiated before it goes to LAFCO for approval.
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“You can’t dismiss the possibility that these California Forever guys will try to use special legislation to impose their will,” Kromm said.
Sramek said the Suisun City expansion would be built out over 40 years and would eventually include 175,000 homes. He said his group is “building a real city, not a bedroom community,” with jobs — a shipyard in the town of Collinsville, a manufacturing district and downtown employers — as well as an entertainment district “modeled on the Meatpacking District in New York, Fulton Market in Chicago and R Street in Sacramento.”
Rather than large apartment complexes, the plan features a “small parcel fabric where lots of people co-create a real city, not a monoculture.”