Innovations and urban development activities are frequently embedded in claims about the future that justify and supports certain business activities. For instance, legal and regulatory reforms may recognize claims made about certain new transportation or energy producing technologies being developed. So-called promissory organization make claims either to support their own business activities or clients’ interests, and this anticipatory logic being used oftentimes includes politically charged claims. In the field of urban development, premised on the access to finance capital and shared beliefs and ambitions about what the future would ideally look like, promissory claims play a key role when mobilizing partner companies as well as policy makers.

This article reports empirical material that shows how promissory claims are supportive of the development of a site hosting sustainable mobility technology innovation activities and energy production. While plausible and appealing images of the future-in-the-making serve to align interests and to promote concerted action, such claims need to be combined with managerial skills (in the corporation) and administrative capacities (in the city agencies that handle the development process) to deliver results that are consistent with optimistic promissory claims.