CalCEF Innovations5 Third St. Suite 1125
San Francisco, CA 94103
P: 415 957 0167 F: 415 957 0177
general info: info@calcef.org
Greentech Media, Jeff St. John - July 30, 2009
San Francisco, U.N. Plan Greentech Incubator,
CalCEF Wants to Help
San Francisco wants about $20 million to build an incubator for green technology businesses at the long-neglected Hunters Point Shipyard – and it wants the United Nations Global Compact, a U.N. branch devoted to finding solutions to climate change, as an anchor tenant.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced the proposal Thursday, marking the beginning of a fundraising and diplomatic push to have the plan approved. If it is, the Global Compact offices could include a $20 million, 100,000-square-foot incubator for greentech startups, said Dan Adler, president of the California Clean Energy Fund.
Newsom said the project could be complete by 2012, though he didn't say what partners it might be inviting into the deal.
Adler said CalCEF wouldn't mind jumping ahead of that 2012 timeline a little bit with an incubator of its own, to be called CalCEF Catalyst.
The $30 million nonprofit venture capital fund, started with money from the bankruptcy settlement between the state and Pacific Gas & Electric Co., already invests in green startups through its angel fund (see Clean Energy Angel Fund Makes First Investments).
While Adler didn't have specifics on CalCEF's incubator plans – besides the goal of opening well before 2012 – he did say CalCEF would seek to partner with San Francisco as it develops the Global Compact green technology incubator.
Hunters Point – a polluted former U.S. Navy shipyard – is the target of a revitalization scheme that would bring it 10,000 new homes and two million square feet of LEED-certified commercial space.