Union City Puts Its Industrial Base at the Center of a Five-Year Economic Development Plan

On July 28, 2026, the Union City, California City Council is scheduled to vote on adopting a new Economic Development Strategic Plan and to accept a six-month work plan for the City’s Economic Development Division (Confirmed — public record; City Council agenda, Item 6.1). For site selectors, developers, and brokers working the East Bay industrial market, the plan is useful less as policy language and more as a data set: the City and its consultant assembled a detailed profile of Union City’s industrial and retail real estate, its tax base, and the specific conditions that are helping or slowing investment there.

The plan was prepared by Strategic Economics and recalibrates the City’s 2019 Economic Development Strategic Plan. It sets out a five-year framework of four goals, 13 objectives, and 45 implementation strategies, and it is explicitly tied to closing a long-term structural deficit in the City’s General Fund (Confirmed — public record). Property and sales taxes together supply about 59 percent of that General Fund, which is why the plan concentrates on the commercial and industrial land that produces most of it.

What the Plan Is and Why the City Is Doing It

The City Manager’s staff report frames the plan as a policy document to guide economic development activity over the next five years, with a focus on the industrial and retail sectors and their effect on the City’s fiscal health (Confirmed — public record). It was reviewed by the City’s Economic Development Advisory Team in March 2026 and at a City Council study session in June 2026. The Council did not request any changes to the plan’s goals or objectives (Confirmed — public record).

Accompanying the plan is a six-month work plan covering July through December 2026, organized under four goals: retaining and growing existing businesses, attracting new businesses, fostering investment in industrial and commercial areas, and marketing the City (Confirmed — public record).

The Industrial Numbers

Union City is, by building stock, an industrial city. Industrial and flex space accounts for roughly 14.2 million square feet, or 84 percent of the City’s commercial real estate excluding residential uses, compared with 60 percent countywide in Alameda County (Confirmed — plan analysis, CoStar 2025). Office is only about 600,000 square feet, or 4 percent, and more than half of that is medical office serving residents rather than a knowledge-worker tenant base.

That inventory is concentrated in a few districts. The Central Bay Business Park holds about 8.1 million square feet, or 55 percent of the City’s industrial space; the Alvarado Business Park and the Lincoln-Alvarado / Union City Boulevard Corridor each hold about 2.9 million square feet, or 20 percent apiece (Confirmed — plan analysis, CoStar 2025). All sit close to Interstate 880.

On performance, the plan reports Union City’s industrial vacancy at 6.1 percent, held flat between 2024 and 2025 even as Hayward, Newark, and San Leandro saw vacancies rise, leaving Union City roughly two points below those neighbors as of the third quarter of 2025 (Confirmed — plan analysis, CoStar 2025). Post-pandemic, the City’s industrial vacancy had bottomed at 2.3 percent, its lowest since 2016. Average industrial rent was $14.56 per square foot NNN in 2025 — the lowest of the four cities compared, though the plan cautions that year-to-year rent swings track building characteristics more than overall market strength.

A recurring theme is the adaptability of the City’s older building stock. The plan names semiconductor packager Azimuth, genetic-medicines manufacturer Tenaya Therapeutics, and life-science developer Tarlton as examples of firms that converted existing industrial or commercial buildings rather than building new (Confirmed — plan analysis). Tenaya completed a build-out of a flex-industrial shell in 2022 for its Genetic Medicines Manufacturing Center; Tarlton has done two conversions in the City. Developers and business representatives told the consultant that converting existing buildings is faster and cheaper than new construction in a location like Union City.

The Retail Numbers

Union City’s retail is heavily region-serving, meaning it draws customers — and net sales-tax dollars — from beyond the City. Union Landing alone, at about 907,000 square feet, is 43 percent of the City’s roughly 2.1 million square feet of retail (Confirmed — plan analysis, CoStar 2025). Retail vacancy stands at about 5.1 percent, and the City’s average retail rents topped $35 per square foot between 2019 and 2024 — a level none of the compared neighbors reached in that window — peaking at $47.41 in 2023 before Union Landing vacancies filled.

Why It Matters for Site Selectors and Developers

Three points in the plan carry the most weight for anyone evaluating Union City.

First, the tax math favors commercial and industrial land. Industrial parcels carry an average assessed value of about $1.35 million per acre and retail about $1.56 million per acre, versus roughly $840,000 per acre for residential (Confirmed — plan analysis, Alameda County Assessor 2023–24). Commercial properties together generated about $20 million for the General Fund in 2024, and produce all of the City’s Bradley-Burns and Measure AA sales-tax revenue (Confirmed — plan analysis). That fiscal reality is why the City is orienting staff toward business retention and attraction.

Second, location and industry mix are concrete, not promotional. Manufacturing employs about 16 percent of Union City workers versus 12 percent countywide, and wholesale trade 10 percent versus roughly 3 percent — together 28 percent of local employment against 15 percent for Alameda County (Confirmed — plan analysis, Lightcast 2023). Food manufacturing alone is 56 percent of the City’s manufacturing jobs, a concentration eight times the county’s, anchored by firms such as Blommer Chocolate and American Licorice that have operated there for at least 50 years. The City sits between the San Mateo and Dumbarton Bridges, on the I-880 corridor, with a BART station and a planned Altamont Corridor Express connection, near the San Mateo County life-science cluster and the northern edge of Santa Clara County’s semiconductor supply chain.

Third, entitlement risk is comparatively low. Developers told the consultant that Union City’s recently updated General Plan and zoning ordinance help streamline the development process and reduce long-term risk (Confirmed — plan analysis, developer interviews).

The Risks and Obstacles

The same plan is candid about what is working against the City.

The General Fund faces a structural deficit, with operating costs rising faster than revenue (Confirmed — public record). On the market side, the plan attributes a current slowdown in life-science investment to federal cuts in research-and-development funding and an oversupply of life-science space across the Bay Area; it notes a recent warehouse-to-life-science conversion that has been slow to lease (As reported — plan analysis). Manufacturers face high rents, labor costs, and power costs that make lower-cost regions such as the Central Valley competitive alternatives, and the plan warns that the loss of even a few key businesses can destabilize the local supply-chain ecosystem.

The City’s largest vacant development sites are not currently drawing market interest (Confirmed — plan analysis). A privately owned vacant parcel in the Station East subarea, once eyed for industrial use, is now under review for roughly 240 townhomes; the owner cited limits on warehouse uses and proximity to I-880 as obstacles to industrial development. Of four City-owned parcels along 11th Street in the Station District Core, three were considered for mid-rise office before the pandemic and may not see office demand for as long as ten years and are subject to the state Surplus Land Act, which requires the City to offer the land to affordable-housing developers first. Power supply is a further constraint: the plan flags PG&E capacity as a growing concern and calls for closer coordination to support industrial areas.

What to Watch

The July 28 Council vote is the immediate item (Proposed — pending Council action). Beyond it, the six-month work plan lists specific deliverables that will signal how the City spends staff time: promotional material and targeted outreach to shopping-center owners for retail attraction, marketing materials for opportunity sites, a Union City Marketing Plan, a Manufacturing Day event, a new small-business “Open Rewards” program, and continued PG&E engagement (Confirmed — public record).

Council feedback from the June study session also points to where priorities may narrow. Councilmember Nishihira asked staff to reduce the number of strategies and to analyze the City’s business mix to target the sectors that generate the greatest tax and job benefits; Mayor Singh asked staff to take a more active role in helping tenants find available industrial and commercial space; and Councilmember Sakakihara flagged process streamlining and help with PG&E issues (Confirmed — public record). A move toward a shorter, more targeted attraction list is worth tracking for anyone marketing sites in the City.