AP – Calif. expo advocates would use old Navy air base
Advocates for a bid to host California’s first World Expo since 1940 see its potential placement at a former military air base in the Silicon Valley as a masterstroke with the possibility to create research facilities and showcase the state’s high-technology region.
At the Shanghai Expo, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Sunday that Moffett Field will be entered into the bidding for the 2020 World Expo.
“We think it’s a transformative opportunity,” said Bill Berry, the president of a partnership between the University of California, NASA and others that have already created some educational research facilities at the airspace on the southern San Francisco Bay. “It’s a game changer.”
Yet experts say the plan to create facilities and exhibit halls for a 2020 World Expo that can eventually be repurposed for higher education could run into challenges, such as finding the necessary money to hold the event.
The Bay Area also faces a slate of potential competitors from the U.S. and abroad. They include Houston, Minneapolis, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
