8 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY march 2-8, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com news When Mi Tierra market shut down for renovations last August, the plan was to reopen the beloved Seaside institution sometime this spring. But due to unforeseen setbacks related to the building’s age, the reopening date has been delayed indefinitely. At best, it will be sometime late summer—a year after it closed. Oswaldo Mesia, the architect managing the remodel, says the project is still in the demolition phase, and that work is moving slowly. Under normal circumstances, he says, there would have been some exploratory work done before renovations began in full. But because the project required first doing asbestos abatement, nothing could be opened up until it was remediated—so workers went into the project blind, not knowing what lay beneath the asbestos-laden flooring. And what workers found once things were opened up is that the concrete beneath is so uneven—“super irregular,” Mesia says—that it is “complicated” to use concrete saws, which require a flat surface or the blade might snap. And even then, because of the way the underground rebar structure was laid out, it’s not as simple as cutting in a straight line to realign the underground utilities— an errant saw might cut through rebar and compromise the building’s structural integrity. “It’s complicated. Normally we just go and trench in a week,” Mesia says, then adds: “Messing up the existing structure would be a big, expensive fix.” The good news for fans of Mi Tierra (home to a market and an outstanding taqueria), is that when the remodel is finally completed, it should be better than ever. For now, those fans will have to wait. In the Trenches Reopening of Seaside’s Mi Tierra has been delayed by what is almost an archaeological dig. By David Schmalz In the roughly five years since it set up shop at Marina Municipal Airport, electric air taxi startup Joby Aviation has been a signpost for Monterey County’s economic potential—one where forward-thinking tech and manufacturing firms could help modernize the local economy beyond its traditional bedrocks of agriculture and tourism. Yet while Joby pushes forward with plans to manufacture a fleet of electric aircraft that would serve as short- to intermediate-distance air taxis, there are concerns Marina could be left behind. The city is one of several across the country now being considered by Joby to house a new, much larger factory that would enable it to scale up operations—and some local stakeholders fear that the startup may look beyond the Central Coast, or California entirely, to lower-cost, more business-friendly pastures. Since leasing multiple buildings at Marina Municipal Airport in 2018, Santa Cruz-based Joby has grown to around 120,000 square feet of space where it employs around 300 people for research and development purposes, including work on its prototype. By 2020, the city of Marina had signed off on allowing Joby to build a much larger facility at the airport—a factory spanning up to 600,000 square feet that would potentially generate up to 2,000 jobs and enable Joby to ramp up production once its aircraft receives certification from the Federal Aviation Administration. But Joby has yet to start work on such a project, and in fact has been entertaining proposals from municipalities across the country before determining where it will construct its facility. With the startup now understood to be shortlisting possible locations, Marina officials are working to ensure their city remains in the running. Assistant City Manager Matt Mogensen says the city is preparing to circle back with Joby in the coming weeks on a revised proposal, which could include enhancements like “infrastructure improvements at the airport” and expansion opportunities on surrounding land. While noting that the city has “a great relationship” with Joby and that the startup is “going to be [in Marina] for a long time” given its decade-plus leases at the airport, Mogensen acknowledges that Joby is considering “what the cost-benefit would be of establishing that larger production line someplace else.” That analysis includes factors like government-sponsored business incentives and tax breaks, as well as the housing available to its workforce. On those fronts, it’s likely that Marina finds itself at a disadvantage to states like Texas and the Carolinas. Still, Marina City Manager Layne Long believes Marina has advantages to offer Joby including proximity to its Santa Cruz headquarters, a strategically advantageous airport and “hundreds of acres of land” to grow its own operations and develop more housing in the future. “Those are things Joby is aware of and we’ll be discussing with them,” he says. A Joby spokesperson says Marina could remain part of its operations wherever the larger facility goes. “While we are considering locations in several states, including California, to host that scaled manufacturing facility, we expect Marina to remain a critical strategic facility for us going forward,” the spokesperson says in a statement. Joby Aviation employs around 300 people at its R&D facility at Marina Municipal Airport, but could look beyond Monterey County to build a new, larger factory. Flight of Fancy Electric air taxi startup Joby Aviation could pass over Marina in deciding where to build a factory. By Rey Mashayekhi Mi Tierra in Seaside shut down for renovations in August of 2022, with plans to reopen in spring of 2023. Now, the best-case scenario is a summer opening, but it might be next winter. “We expect Marina to remain a critical strategic facility.” Daniel Dreifuss Daniel Dreifuss
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