Also: Lowe's plans two stores; Costco shifts Ukiah siteFramington, Mass.-based The TJX Companies, which operates stores such as TJ Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods, may be getting ready to put a store in the vacant 63,000-square-foot Mervyn’s building at 389 S. McDowell Blvd. in Petaluma’s Washington Square shopping center.
A TJX spokeswoman said the company doesn’t talk about store openings in advance and no opening date for a Petaluma location is scheduled.
[caption id="attachment_21961" align="alignright" width="288" caption="A TJ Maxx store could take over this shuttered Mervyn’s store in Washington Square in Petaluma. (Terranomics Retail Services photo)"][/caption]
However, the company in early May posted job openings on its website for a store manager and an assistant store manager to operate a TJ Maxx location with more than 40 employees in Petaluma.
TJX has seven North Bay stores, with TJ Maxx stores in Santa Rosa and Fairfield; Marshalls in Santa Rosa, Novato and Vacaville; and HomeGoods in Vacaville.
An agent with Terranomics Retail Services, which is marketing a number of former Mervyn’s locations for Santa Monica-based mall giant Macerich, declined to comment on a pending deal for the Petaluma store.
Macerich retains leaseholds on about three dozen former Mervyn’s locations, half of which have been reoccupied by other retailers, mainly Kohl’s and Forever 21, according to company filings.
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Sonoma Storage Emporium, a four-acre 721-unit self-storage complex with 36,000 square feet of refrigerated wine storage, is set for a trustee’s sale later this month to satisfy $11.1 million in Sonoma Valley Bank claims that have been unpaid by San Rafael-based SSE LLC.
The sale is set for June 22 at 11 a.m. at the Petaluma community center.
SSE set up four self-storage complexes in the North Bay in the past several years, including Self Storage Emporium locations in Larkspur, San Rafael and Novato.
A receiver for the Santa Rosa property hired Devon Self Storage, a large self-storage facility investment and management company based in Emeryville, in late April to operate the facility, according to a source familiar with the situation.
The property had been on the market for sale at $17 million and then $15.5 million. The 248-unit Novato facility is listed for sale at $5.8 million.
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There are a number of warehouse store projects that have been approved or started coming out of the ground in the North Bay recently.
Lowe’s Home Improvement received city council approval in February for a 138,000-square-foot store in a shopping center planned to be built on former airport land in Clearlake in Lake County. The Sierra Club has sued the city in county court to require an environmental impact report on the project.
The Fairfield Planning Commission in early May approved a 139,000-square-foot Lowe’s on land the city is selling for the retailer, and construction is planned to start this summer.
And Lowe’s plans to complete a store in Vallejo around the end of this year. The stores employ 120 to 150 people each.
In Ukiah, the back-and-forth saga with Costco Wholesale over building a store appears to be focusing back on Redwood Business Park under a letter of intent arranged last month to sell about 15 acres of city redevelopment agency land.
Costco had been considering taking an anchor spot in the proposed Mendocino Crossings shopping center on former Masonite land north of the city, but voters objected to rezoning the land.
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Green Valley Corporate Park, a 132-acre industrial business park at the Solano County hub of interstates 80 and 680 and Highway 12, has been getting some welcome activity from government and health care organizations consolidating Bay Area locations, according to developer Harvey Shein.
In addition to buildings in the park built by Copart, NorthBay Healthcare and two hotels, two speculative office buildings totaling 110,000 square feet only have 10,000 square feet available after four recent leases, according to leasing agents Glen Dowling, Matt Bracco and Chris Neeb of Cushman & Wakefield.
Public works contractor Kiewit finished a 30,000-square-foot regional office in the park this spring to relocate from the East Bay. Sutter Health expanded its 15,000-square-foot conference and training facility in one of two speculative office buildings built in the park in recent years with 4,600 square feet.
Sutter VNA & Hospice added to its offices with the relocation of an accounting department from Emeryville. And the IRS inked a deal for 10,000 square feet to move an office from the East Bay to be between Sacramento and the Bay Area.
My Absolute Health, led by a physician from nearby NorthBay Healthcare, launched late last year.
Work now under way on upgrading the Highway 12 link between Solano and Napa counties bodes well for approved buildings for the business park, according to Mr. Shein. That includes two office buildings totaling 113,000 square feet, two professional office buildings of about 10,000 each and a retail building of about 8,000 square feet.
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The city of Novato has granted permission for medical offices at Rowland Plaza office and retail property in Novato, expanding opportunities for filling about a quarter of the 168,000-square-foot property. Los Angeles-based Barker Pacific Group and Rockwood Capital acquired the three-building property in October.
At Barker Pacific’s other Novato property, the 415,000-square-foot Hamilton Landing office redevelopment, Disney’s ImageMovers Digital unit has hired CB Richard Ellis to market its 120,000 square feet in two renovated hangars for sublease. ImageMovers plans to vacate the space this year.
Another Barker Pacific initiative is The Landing at Hamilton residential development across from Hamilton Landing. Models for the 27 freestanding, single-family homes are set to be finished in July.
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Submit items for this column to Jeff Quackenbush at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com, 707-521-4256 or fax 707-521-5292.
