Developers Begin Construction on Fremont Industrial Campus

Construction began this week on a sprawling industrial property in south Fremont, and developers are still looking for a tenant — ideally an artificial intelligence company.

The manufacturing business complex, known as Campus at Bayside, is being built by CBRE, 9th Street partners and Clarion Partners, The Mercury News reported. Mayor Raj Salwan expressed his hope at the groundbreaking that the new buildings will help make Fremont the Bay Area city “where the future gets built.”

“We’re here, not just to break ground, but to lay the foundation for Fremont’s future,” Salwan said at the ceremony, according to The Mercury News. “This project deserves a marquee tenant.”

Campus at Bayside will span 473,250 square feet across six buildings in the Bayside Technology Park, located in Fremont’s Warm Springs neighborhood. Other tenants at the Technology Park include Tesla, Zoox, Bloom Energy and Seagate. Clarion bought the nearly 28-acre property from developers John Arrillaga and Richard Peery in 2022 for $123.3 million.

The developers plan to open Campus in two phases, with about 253,473 square feet across three buildings expected to be completed by the middle of next year. The rest will open at a future, yet-to-be-determined date.

Salwan is looking forward to tech companies with innovative focuses, such as AI and air taxis, to consider either leasing or buying any or all of the six Campus buildings. It’s an “exceedingly rare” opportunity for an interested firm, he said, to set up an assembly line-style operation for tech manufacturing.

AI, in particular, is of interest to Salwan, not just at Campus but across the city of Fremont.

“That’s the future,” Salwan said at the groundbreaking, per The Mercury News. “We want to embrace it, and we know that’s going to disrupt a lot of industries.”

He added the city is “all in on the AI boom,” opening the door to firms looking to grab space in the region.

Many AI firms have been looking beyond San Francisco for offices as the sector continues to grow.

Databricks, an AI-powered data and analytics company, for example, just snagged a 305,000-square-foot lease in Sunnyvale. Skild AI, a Pittsburgh-based robotics company, just leased nearly 32,500 square feet of offices in San Mateo. AI startup Glean, meanwhile, headquartered in Palo Alto, is growing its Bay Area presence with an additional office in San Francisco.

In total, AI firms have increased their footprint almost tenfold in the Bay Area since the turn of the decade. Four years ago, AI companies had six leases for offices totaling 280,000 square feet; that number has since ballooned to 41 leases across 2.4 million square feet, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

— Chris Malone Méndez