In its quest to build a new California city in Solano County, the billionaire-backed California Forever group continues its work to also create an economic engine for that city, which it envisions being a new shipbuilding hub.

It may be an opportunistic idea because of the Trump administration's stated push to revive American shipbuilding, but California Forever, the group that has not given up on its mission to build a city out of whole cloth in eastern Solano County wants to take advantage regardless.

We learned last March, barely two months into Trump's second term, that a shipbuilding facility on Solano County's Delta waterfront was part of the group's plan. They are looking to build a new shipyard near the tiny unincorporated town of Collinsville, which could be one source of jobs for the estimated 400,000 people they believe they're building this new city for.

Now, as the SF Business Times reports, California Forever is partnering with the owners of nearby Mare Island, the Nimitz Group, to seek a new Maritime Prosperity Zone designation for the Sacramento River Delta. The move is expected to bring regulatory relief, tax incentives, and a push for private investment in enterprises like shipbuilding.

"This proposal responds directly to the national imperative to rebuild America’s maritime industrial base," says Jan Sramek, the founder and CEO of California Forever, in a statement. "Solano County, and the broader California Delta region, are uniquely positioned to become a bridge between the past and the future of shipbuilding in California."

Already, a Solano County economic development nonprofit is backing the plan.

"For too long, Solano's greatest export has been our talent," says Chris Rico, CEO of the Solano Economic Development Corporation, in a statement. "The designation of a Maritime Prosperity Zone is the catalyst we need to bring thousands of well-paid, skilled jobs back to our county, ensuring residents can build world-class careers right here at home."

The proposal for the designation has reportedly been submitted, and it will require coordination betweens state and federal agencies, including from the Department of Commerce and the Navy.

If approved, the designation would impact waterfront properties in five counties: Solano, Yolo, Sacramento, San Joaquin, and Contra Costa counties.

California Forever, after seeing the political writing on the wall in the last two years with regard to getting county voters' approval for a major zoning exemption to build their new city, decided last year to partner with nearby Suisun City, an economically disadvantaged city that could ultimately choose to annex California Forever's 60,000ish acres. The newly expanded city, which could always choose a new name, would go from a population around 29,000 to 400,000 in the coming decades, if all goes according to plan.

Sramek got the ear of a cabal of billionaires around seven or eight years ago — including Laurene Powell Jobs, Marc Andreesen, and Michael Moritz — who threw down around $900 million for the land. The land was assembled from parcels owned primarily by farm families, and by most accounts, the land — which lacks decent water resources — was not particularly well suited to farming.

The group remained secretive for several years, under the name Flannery Associates, before being outed in an August 2023 New York Times report, after which they began creating a public-facing website — full of AI-generated utopian imagery — and outreach materials, hoping to curry favor with county voters.

The land they've assembled is east of Travis Air Force Base, and local politicos and others have expressed concern about that proximity. The latest plan would include a strip of undevelopment land they're calling a "Travis Protection Zone" to the south and southeast of the air base, linking Suisun City to the West to a new industrial park, and to the new community.

The proposed shipyard area is not included on the above map, and would be to the south.