Also: Yountville's Bardessono earns top LEED award
Whole Foods Market has construction on two stores in the North Bay under way, and a third is set to start this spring. Bidding for outfitting the completed store shell in Coddingtown Mall in Santa Rosa is set to open in April, and already the Austin-based retailer has a long list of interested contractors, some of which are from the North Bay, according to Glen Moon, vice president of store development. Construction documents are being completed now.
"We'll narrow it down to a half-dozen by the time it goes to bid," he said.
The store opening, delayed from mid-2009 because of the economy, is now set for late 2010.
Improvements on a second Mill Valley store in a former Albertsons are progressing, with an opening tentatively set for June 9.
The anchor store in the Millworks mixed-use project in central Novato is set to be complete in late April.
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[caption id="attachment_18428" align="alignright" width="288" caption="Entrance to the Platinum LEED certified hotel, Bordessono"][/caption]
The U.S. Green Building Council awarded the 62-room Bardessono hotel, restaurant and spa in Yountville the highest level of certification, called Platinum, in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design project-rating system. That purportedly puts the year-old project by Kirkland, Wash.-based MTM Luxury Lodging among only a few hotels worldwide with that distinction.
Point-earning features include 947 rooftop solar panels rated at 200 kilowatt-hours, 72 300-foot geothermal wells to save energy on room and water temperature control, grey- and blackwater recycling for irrigation in the town and 93 percent construction material recycling.
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Santa Rosa-based Burbank Housing Development Corp. broke ground in December on a 65-unit, $25.9 million affordable apartment project on nearly three acres at 6065 Old Redwood Highway in Windsor. Eight units of the Windsor Redwoods project are reserved for the Sonoma County Mental Health Division.
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Construction on G&C AutoBody's fourth shop, located at 10661 Old Redwood Highway in Windsor, is under construction. [See story, "G&C expects to start Windsor building," Nov. 17, 2008.] The Santa Rosa-based repair company wanted to start construction in spring 2009, but the project involves coordination with Caltrans on signals at the onramp and offramp from Highway 101 across the street and with the town of Windsor over utilities connections, according to project manager Budd Vance.
That coordination delayed groundbreaking until Nov. 30 and increased the project budget to $5 million, including $800,000 for off-site work, from $4 million. Rains are pushing back the construction schedule, originally set to take eight months. The project is financed through Bank of America.
G&C President Gene Crozat is acting as general contractor on the project. Key contractors on the project are Pacatte Construction of Santa Rosa on the office building and Sebastopol-based pre-engineered steel building specialist Cary & Associates Builders. Cary also constructed G&C's 22,000-square-foot shop addition at its main Santa Rosa facility, which was finished in January 2009.
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Industry West Commerce Center LLC, the developer group behind a new southwest Santa Rosa industrial property, filed a voluntary petition for Chapter 11 reorganization in Santa Rosa on Jan. 14. In court documents, the developer listed $18.8 million in liabilities and $24.3 million in assets.
The filing became necessary because the economic slowdown starting in late 2008 not only stalled initial leasing of the project but also challenged efforts to refinance a $15.9 million construction loan from lead secured creditor Central Pacific Bank of Honolulu by the July 2009 due date, according to Vince Rizzo of Santa Rosa-based Rizzo & Associates.
“We’re not in trouble; we’re still making deals,” he said.
The three-building, 193,000-square-foot complex at 237 Todd Road currently is 72 percent occupied, not including 24,000 square feet of warehouse space leased to troubled wine distributor Billington Imports at least into March. A deal for the space could come in 45 days, Mr. Rizzo said.
The bank and the developers disagree on how they’ve attempted to resolve the past-due loan, according to early February court filings. A court hearing is set for Feb. 26.
That disagreement over payment led to Central Pacific Bank to start judicial foreclosure proceedings in Sonoma County Superior Court late last year, an action that prompted the bankruptcy court filing, according to documents. The developer counterclaimed breach of the loan agreement, asserting that the bank didn’t release an additional $1 million for tenant improvements. The case is pending.
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Submit items for this column to Jeff Quackenbush at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com, 707-521-4256 or fax 707-521-5292.
