California Forever Now Owns Part of Main Street in Suisun City

By Elena Marsh ยท Published September 4, 2026

California Forever closed on a vacant former bank at 701 Main Street and two parking lots on September 1. What the $1.5M deal lets it build, how it fits the 22,873-acre annexation, and what it means for buyers in Suisun City and Fairfield.

Morning view along the Suisun City waterfront promenade toward the marina and the old Main Street storefronts, the downtown block where California Forever now owns property.

On September 1, 2026, the deed to a vacant one-story bank building on Main Street in Suisun City transferred to CF Suisun 1 LLC, a company set up by California Forever. Two downtown parking lots went with it, leased straight back to the city for a dollar a year. It is the first closing under a $1.5 million purchase agreement the City Council approved 5 to 0 on May 26, and the first time the company behind a proposed 400,000-person city in eastern Solano County has owned anything inside an existing downtown.

That is the whole news event. What it means is larger. California Forever now has a physical stake in the one town that said yes to it, and the next step in that town's 22,873-acre expansion, the draft environmental report, is due this fall.

The spec sheet first:

  • Closed September 1: 701 Main Street, a 4,356-square-foot former bank, plus two parking lots. Phase one of a five-parcel, $1.5 million deal.
  • Still to close: the 1857 Lawler House at 718 Main and the Suisun Harbor Theatre next door, both dark since the 2010s.
  • Council vote: 5 to 0 on May 26, 2026, with no competitive bid.
  • Next decision: the draft EIR for the Suisun Expansion, expected fall 2026, then approval hearings targeted for spring 2027.

What closed on September 1, and what did not

The city's own release calls the building 707 Main Street. Every news account, the staff report and its old LoopNet listing say 701 Main. Same single-story former bank on a tenth of an acre, later a restaurant, empty for years.

The May 26 agreement covers five city-owned parcels in the 700 block of Main (701, 703, 711, 713 and 717) plus the lots, sold without a bidding process. Staff estimated about $1.02 million to the general fund and $20,350 to the housing authority.

Still ahead are the Lawler House, an 1857 ranch house moved to 718 Main in 1979 that a 2023 appraisal valued at $100,000 with the building and $150,000 as a bare lot, and the Harbor Theatre beside it. No closing date has been given.

California Forever committed in writing to planning and entitlement work under the Downtown Specific Plan, and to outreach. It did not commit to a building. When Jan Sramek sent the offer letter in June 2025 he wrote that the company "cannot commit to constructing a downtown property on a standalone basis." Keep that sentence handy. It explains the whole deal.

Who California Forever is, in the length of a coffee

Start in 2017. A company called Flannery Associates began buying farmland in eastern Solano County, between Travis Air Force Base and Rio Vista, one parcel at a time, anonymously. By the time The New York Times identified the backers on August 25, 2023, Flannery had spent roughly $900 million on more than 50,000 acres, later more than 60,000.

The money came from Silicon Valley: Michael Moritz, Reid Hoffman, Marc Andreessen, Laurene Powell Jobs, Patrick and John Collison, Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross among them. The public face is Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trader who runs it as CEO.

The buying came with a lawsuit. In May 2023, three months before it was unmasked, Flannery sued 39 landowners in federal court, many of them multigenerational farming families, alleging they colluded to inflate prices, and sought $510 million. Most settled in 2024 on undisclosed terms. That is why the word trust comes up at every Suisun City meeting.

From the ballot box to the annexation desk

Solano County's Orderly Growth policy dates to 1984 and was readopted as Measure T in 2008 with 70.85 percent of the vote. It restricts development on county farmland through December 31, 2028, so a new city needed voters. The East Solano Plan would have rezoned 17,500 acres. On July 22, 2024, after spending close to $9 million and reading its own polling, the company pulled the measure.

The pivot came in 2025. If a city annexes the land, the county's rules stop applying, and the decision moves to a city council and the Local Agency Formation Commission. Suisun City, 29,518 people on 4.07 square miles, said yes. On June 10, 2025, its council voted 3 to 1 for a reimbursement agreement: a $400,000 deposit for study costs and $10 million in community benefits, $3.5 million at EIR certification and $6.5 million after LAFCO approval. County supervisors had voted 5 to 0 the week before to ask Suisun City to pause. It did not.

The formal application landed October 14, 2025. The Notice of Preparation filed November 12, 2025 puts numbers on it: 22,873 acres annexed, a 15,737-acre specific plan, about 65,217 homes and 150,000 residents in the first 20 years, 173,913 homes and 400,000 residents at buildout. A recall of all five council members failed to qualify in February 2026.

The jobs pitch, and the week Solano said no

Since mid-2025 the company has led with jobs. The Solano Foundry, announced July 17, 2025, is a 2,100-acre, 40-million-square-foot manufacturing park pitched at about 40,000 jobs. Seven miles south is the proposed Solano Shipyard, on roughly 1,350 acres of county-zoned water-dependent industrial land at Collinsville.

In early August, after the defense shipbuilder Saronic chose Brownsville, Texas over Collinsville for a $3.2 billion yard, California Forever said the shipyard and factory do not happen without streamlined housing approvals. We covered that demand on August 11. Then on August 25 the Solano County Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 against the Solano Maritime and Manufacturing Act, a last-minute bill that would have let the Collinsville site rely on a 2008 environmental report and hard permit deadlines. No bill was introduced before the session ended August 31. Newsom announced the Mare Island shipbuilding grant the next morning, and our Vallejo piece covered what that money is and is not.

So the Main Street closing, one week later, is the answer to a bad month. The company cannot get the county to move. It can show the one city that said yes that the checks clear.

California Forever, 2017 to September 2026

Nine years in one table. The pattern is a company that keeps changing venue, not goal, and only one government has ever voted yes.

DateWhat happenedWhy it matters
2017Flannery Associates starts quietly buying eastern Solano farmland60,000-plus acres, about $900 million
May 2023Flannery sues 39 landowners for $510 millionMost settle in 2024, the trust deficit starts here
Aug 25, 2023New York Times names the Silicon Valley investorsProject goes public as California Forever
July 22, 2024East Solano Plan ballot measure withdrawn after pollingCountywide vote route abandoned
June 10, 2025Suisun City council approves reimbursement agreement, 3 to 1$400,000 deposit, $10 million in promised benefits
Nov 12, 2025Notice of Preparation: 22,873 acres, 173,913 homes at buildoutThe EIR clock starts
Feb 2026Recall of all five council members fails to qualifyCouncil majority survives
May 26, 2026Council sells five Main Street parcels and two lots, 5 to 0$1.5 million deal, no competitive bid
Aug 25, 2026Solano supervisors vote 3 to 2 against shipyard streamlining billNo bill this session
Sept 1, 2026701 Main Street and two parking lots closeFirst deed inside an existing downtown

What $1.5 million buys on Main Street versus a house in Suisun City

The entire deal costs about what three ordinary Suisun City houses cost. Redfin put the city's median sale price at $528,712 for the three months ending June 2026, down 2.1 percent in a year. For $1.5 million California Forever gets five parcels, two parking lots, a bank and two historic buildings, one of which appraised at $150,000 as a bare lot.

Next to the $400,000 deposit and the $10 million in promised benefits, the real estate is the smallest check the company has written to Suisun City. The dollar-a-year lease on the parking lots is a tell. This is a purchase of goodwill and a foothold, not cash flow.

Critics at the May 26 hearing called it a fire sale and asked why there was no bid. Fair question. The staff report answered that the buildings were largely uninhabitable and had already been listed without a taker. Both can be true. It is the best block in Suisun City, as one speaker said, and nobody else wanted it for a decade.

What owning 701 Main Street lets California Forever do, and what it does not

It lets the company build, eventually, under rules that already exist. Suisun City has planned its waterfront district since 1979, with a specific plan adopted in 1983 and updated in 1999 and 2016 that allows mixed commercial and residential on Main Street. A restaurant, apartments over shops, the arts and food space the company floated in May: all of it needs the city's planning counter and nobody else. No LAFCO, no county, no EIR.

It does not shortcut the annexation. The 22,873 acres still go through the draft EIR, certification, a council vote on the specific plan and development agreement, and then LAFCO, targeted for 2027 or 2028. A bank building downtown gets the company a seat at the counter, not a vote.

What it changes is the politics. Every expansion hearing will now happen a few blocks from a building California Forever owns. If the 700 block looks better in spring 2027 than in 2025, the argument that the company only takes from Suisun City gets harder. If it sits fenced and empty, Sramek's standalone-basis sentence gets read aloud at the podium.

Suisun City and Fairfield are still under $700K, and that is the real stake

Solano is the last county in the nine-county Bay Area where a typical house costs less than $700,000. The California Association of Realtors put the Solano County median at $610,000 in July 2026, up 2.7 percent, against $1,285,000 for the region. Suisun City, and Fairfield at $622,911 in June 2026, sit in the middle of that market.

PlaceMedian priceMonthSource
Suisun City$528,712June 2026Redfin
Vallejo$544,870July 2026Houseberry
Solano County$610,000July 2026C.A.R.
Fairfield$622,911June 2026Redfin
Benicia$849,830August 2026Houseberry
Bay Area, nine counties$1,285,000July 2026C.A.R.

The gap between the top and bottom rows is why this project exists. The Daily Republic's own math from August 30 says a $560,000 house needs a household income of roughly $115,000 to $150,000 with 20 percent down, against a Solano median household income of about $100,400. More than half of local households cannot buy the median house in the cheapest county in the region. That is the shortage the 65,217 first-phase homes are meant to answer, and why we keep taking the plan seriously even when the company's tactics have not earned much trust.

The near-term effect on Suisun City prices is close to zero. Nothing gets built on the expansion land before 2028, and the downtown parcels are five small lots. What moves sooner is perception. Buyers priced out of Benicia, about $849,830 on our city page in August 2026, or the better Vallejo neighborhoods, about $544,870 citywide in July 2026, are already looking east. A downtown that visibly reopens moves that comparison faster than any EIR.

The honest downside is the city itself. Suisun City runs a structural deficit above $1 million, and in August 2026 a cyberattack closed City Hall for a week. A government that thin is negotiating with a company that spent $455,000 lobbying one bill this summer. That asymmetry is the opposition's strongest argument, and a much better one than neighborhood character.

The opponents, weighed fairly

Three groups, three cases. The farmers who were sued have the simplest: they were treated as a cartel for declining to sell, and no downtown investment fixes that. Travis Air Force Base is a real constraint, which is why the plan carves out a 5,726-acre Travis Protection Zone and why the Air Force's position will matter more than any council vote. The Solano Orderly Growth Committee is defending a policy 70 percent of county voters chose in 2008.

Where the evidence tilts is on the shortage. Nobody at the May hearing argued Solano has enough homes. The company's countywide poll shows 59 percent support, an FM3 Research poll shows 58 percent of Suisun City residents opposed, and both can be right at once. People want the homes and do not trust this builder.

The dates that decide this

The calendar as of September 4, 2026:

  • Fall 2026: draft EIR for the Suisun Expansion released, followed by a public comment window.
  • Winter 2026 to 2027: targeted EIR certification, which triggers the first $3.5 million payment.
  • January 2027: new legislative session, when supervisors said they would revisit a shipyard bill.
  • Spring 2027: council hearings on the specific plan and development agreement, then LAFCO in 2027 or 2028.
  • No date: the Lawler House and Harbor Theatre closings, and any construction on the 700 block.

If you are shopping Solano this fall, treat the expansion as a 2028 story and the downtown as a 2027 one, and compare neighborhoods the way we do on Houseberry, block by block, before deciding whether a bet on Suisun City is a bet on California Forever at all. Our Vallejo neighborhood rankings show what the same money buys one exit west. The next hard date is the draft EIR. We will read it so you do not have to.

Sources

About the Author

Elena Marsh

Longtime Bay Area resident and housing writer who reads the council agendas and planning staff reports most people skip, covering development, zoning, and transit-oriented housing across the region.