Who is Corky?
The Corky McMillin Companies: Alameda Point Developer Proposal (2 of 5)
Initial Reactions: Pro: McMillin certainly appears to have experience Military base conversions, including environmental cleanup. Their vision statement indicates an understanding that transportation solutions will/should be driving the design at the Point.
Con: Concerns about spreading themselves too thin should be looked at. As a smaller (only single digit billion dollars per year) corporation and “selective” (they say it’s by choice, but it could be due to capital constraints) they may be more responsive to the community. However, a quick scan for info on McMillin found a few articles including this one from the San Diego Reader that seem to say not everyone sees them that way. (it’s an interesting article, but if it’s sourced like an East Bay Express article, I’d take the whole thing with a grain of salt). McMillin is one of the Top 100 contributors to the Guvernator as well, which certainly points to them being more than the “little company that could.”
Like many of the other proposals, McMillin writes a lot about how great the Preliminary Development Concept (PDC) is, it would have been nice to see a little more vision for what they want to “do” at the Point. All of the proposals are in response to a Request For Qualifications (RFQ), which means they were asked to show they are up to the job, but it would be nice to see some thought going into what they would like to do, even if it wasn’t required.
My favorite part of the proposal is “[McMillin] professional will be able to hit the ground running, should we be fortunate enough to be selected master developer.” I love the fact that their proposal lacks the language of entitlement and speaks with humility (not a specific slag on the other proposals). It is not often that multi-billion dollar corporations “hope” and feel “fortunate” for opportunities. On the other hand, I sure wish whoever put this proposal together had used a larger font size, I felt like I needed bi-focals as I squinted to read the tiny type (and given the amount of whitespace on some of the pages, it wouldn’t have made it more than a page longer).
Lastly, they have very little experience in the Bay Area, unlike a number of the other applicants. Not a deal killer, but so much of their work is in San Diego/So. Cal/Central Valley, it’s not something to be ignored when thinking about systems, personnel and other company infrastructure to tackle this particular project.
Proposal Particulars: The McMillin Proposal is really a true presentation of qualifications. Not even a broad presentation of an understanding of the project beyond saying that they are committed to implementing the “vision” of the community. Their understanding of the importance of the transportation infrastructure shows that they have knowledge of the project itself, it would have been nice to see them display that knowledge. Even if it wasn’t asked for.
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