Millenia Smart Park: The beginning of San Diego’s Autonomous Alley

With three connected campuses totaling 1.5 million square feet dedicated to everything autonomous, Millenia Smart Park in the San Diego region makes an ideal location for tech-forward companies in search of a new headquarters or office.

Breaking ground Summer 2021, the Phase I “THINK Campus” offers cutting-edge office space that combines world-class architecture with existing smart city amenities. To support this campus, 3,000 residential units, retail, and restaurants are also under construction or have already been built.

AUVSI spoke with the leaders of this project to learn more about their vision for Millenia Smart Park and what makes it uniquely situated to provide powerful real estate solutions for companies focused on unmanned, automated, and autonomous technologies. 

With significant investments in smart technologies and IoT connectivity already in place with more planned, south San Diego County’s “Autonomous Alley” offers top-tier opportunities featuring infrastructure, talented workforce, and a local climate that enables good line of sight for unmanned aerial systems (UAS) operations.

Geography makes Autonomous Alley ideal for tech and engineering companies, sitting at the epicenter of the CaliBaja Mega Region. Comprised of San Diego and Imperial Counties and the municipios of Tijuana, Tecate, and Mexicali, the CaliBaja Mega Region is a global leader in cross-border manufacturing activity; is home to over 90 colleges and universities; and has robust infrastructure connections, including six border crossings, five international airports and two maritime ports.

In the immediate vicinity, Millenia Smart Park is situated in the city of Chula Vista, which is renounced for its support of unmanned systems, commitment to safety planning, and willingness to share information with industry and government partners. Chula Vista is the only city in the U.S. with federal recognition for both autonomous vehicle (AV) and UAS testing and validation, having been recognized by the U.S. Department of Transportation as one of the 10 Autonomous Vehicle Proving Grounds in the nation in 2017.

Chula Vista has also dedicated 300 acres to welcome a new university with engineering programs, setting up a strong future to ensure the area will continue to offer a workforce that is educated in autonomous systems and other advanced technologies.

 

Companies in automated and autonomous systems will also benefit from the region’s easy access to infrastructure that supports all three domains (ground, air, and maritime).

Millenia Smart Park is only one mile from the Chula Vista UAV Test Site, which provides access to 375 acres of airspace for drone testing and is seven miles from Brown Field, which offers direct airport runway and hangar access.

For ground operations, a potential 30-acre AV test site is located adjacent to Millenia Smart Park. Companies in maritime systems will benefit from proximity to Naval Base San Diego, the principal homeport of the Pacific Fleet and location of the Navy’s first-ever unmanned fleet exercise conducted earlier this year. 

Few other locations can provide the high level of scalability that Millenia Smart Park offers to companies in search of new corporate headquarters or location for their company’s engineering department. Gensler Architects has been contracted to design a world-class corporate headquarters facility and brings to the project their expertise in designing energy efficient and innovative workspaces.

Supportive community partners, an existing ecosystem of technology and manufacturing companies, a talented workforce, and regional advantages all combine to make the Autonomous Alley a leading location for companies – from newer startups to well-established industry leaders – seeking to relocate or expand to an area that supports the unmanned and autonomous future. Take an interactive tour on Millenia Smart Park’s website or contact Tony Russell at tony.russell@am.jll.com/858-410-1213 to learn more.