Commercial Real Estate and Construction: Leading commercial real estate broker sees 'growth seeds'

Also: Facilities manager FaciliCorp opens office; Lathrop wins bid for Roseland elementarySonoma County job growth is leading that of other counties in the state, observed Al Coppin, president of commercial real estate brokerage Keegan & Coppin Co. Inc. He pointed to major leases in the Highway 101 corridor in Sonoma and Marin counties in the past several months: Cyan Optics, Calix, Metier, Central Payment Corp., BioMarin Pharmaceutical, ProSight Specialty Insurance and Amy's Kitchen.

[caption id="attachment_19246" align="alignleft" width="141" caption="Al Coppin"][/caption]

"There's a lot of seed and venture capital -- little growth seeds -- and it's working," he said. "A year ago we forecast the county would come out ahead of the rest of the state for that reason."

Class A space in the corridor has been filling up at rents at the same level they were at least 10 years ago, sometimes much older.

"The challenge in 2011 is filling the [class] B space, which in some cases is priced the same as the [class] A space," Mr. Coppin said. "There has to be adjustment for landlords on that."

Petaluma has a two-tier office property investment market, according to Mr. Coppin. In one, distressed properties -- those with not enough rent income to pay debt secured at the peak of the market several years ago -- are selling for $40 to $50 a square foot, namely former Equity Office Properties holdings. That's basically the cost of the land, he noted. [See a related story: "Basin Street plans major upgrades for newly repurchased Petaluma buildings," March 18.]

The rest of the Petaluma office market is getting interest in the $100-a-square-foot range, which is still below the replacement cost of the buildings. However, that reflects the current level of office rents in such properties, Mr. Coppin said.

"The reality is scarcity of land and expense of developing it -- very expensive, such as Petaluma fees for development of $5 to $6 a square foot," he said. "Rental rates should tighten up in a couple of years because of lack of supply and the cost of replacing that supply."

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San Jose-based facilities management firm FaciliCorp opened a North Bay office at the beginning of this year. From a small Forestville office, Vice President Karen Heintz helps direct a Bay Area team of 30 space planners, tenant-improvement construction managers and relocation specialists.

The 28-year-old company handles big details and minutia of a company's new facility, from assembly of the design team to site search and evaluation of flexibility for expansion and contraction to occupancy.

"We make sure there are fewer loose ends and change orders down the road," said Ms. Heintz. Her background includes facilities management for Netscape, AOL and a number of Silicon Valley companies. She can be reached at 707-874-9774.

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Dan Peterson, owner-operator of the Sears Hometown Store in Ukiah, plans to consolidate his 5,000-square-foot store in Pear Tree Shopping Center and warehouses around the city to 10,000-square-feet in a small retail project under construction in Ukiah's Redwood Business Park.

Mr. Peterson is a partner with Chico-based commercial general contractor and developer Guillon Inc. to build a 16,000-square-foot retail building and 6,000-square-foot retail pad at 1230 Airport Park Blvd.

A national mobile phone dealer is vying for one of the two available 3,000-square-foot spaces in the building, and there are a few contenders for the other space, according to the broker of both sides of the deal, Dennis Brisken of Cassidy Turley BT Commercial.

The pad site is proving more challenging because of City Council direction to limit drive-through access to any restaurant planned for the site and increase healthful menu options. Discussions are ongoing.

Guillon/Peterson recently purchased the 1.75-acre property from Redwood Business Park LLC for $618,000. The construction project is expected to cost $2.2 million and be completed by the middle of this year.

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Lathrop Construction Associates of Benicia had the winning low bid of $15.9 million for building the new Roseland Creek Elementary School in southwest Santa Rosa. Of the six bids received, the three lowest were within $70,000 of each other, according to project designer TLCD Architecture of Santa Rosa.

The three-building, two-story project has been six years coming. It was on hold for three years when state funds for school construction were tight. The project is set to be released in early April. Construction would start in mid-April and be completed by August 2012. The total project cost is $26 million.

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Ascent Builders of Sacramento broke ground this month for the Salvation Army's $22 million Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center at 586 E. Wigeon Way in Suisun City. When the 36,000-square-foot youth and senior center opens this fall, it will include a chapel, fitness center, pool, rock climbing wall, dance studio, cafe, meeting space.

Ray Kroc was founder of the McDonald's fast food franchise.

The $44 million in funding for the Suisun City project, which includes an endowment, is funded from the $1.8 billion Jean Kroc gave the Salvation Army through 2003. This would be the seventh such community center built on the West Coast and one of 15 operational nationwide.

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Investment property specialists David Buurma and Kirsten Strain left Cassidy Turley BT Commercial on to form their own firm on March 1, Buurma & Strain Commercial Services. Contact Mr. Buurma in the Napa-Solano market at 707-337-4328 and Ms. Strain in Petaluma at 707-981-7178.

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Something not normally included in radiant heating installations is radiant cooling. Rather than moving hot liquid through tubing in or under the floor to evenly and gradually heat a space, radiant cooling pulls heat out of a room by the same process. One of the relative few dual systems in the Bay Area was part of the Hall Wines' St. Helena winery project, which the U.S. Green Building Council last year awarded Gold-level LEED certification, the second highest level.

"Although we do hundreds of commercial in-floor radiant installations, very few involve cooling," said Bob Reid, owner of Reid Heating & Energy.

The San Rafael-based company installed the 83,000 feet of PEX plastic tubing in the 20-inch-thick concrete slab for the 20,000-square-foot facility. That much thermal mass allows the gradually heating and cooling system to keep the cellar at around 55 degrees.

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Speaking of LEED certification, Codding Enterprises received the highest level, Platinum, under the relatively new LEED for Neighborhood Design rating system for the 200-acre Sonoma Mountain Village mixed-use redevelopment project in Rohnert Park.

Last year, the development received LEED for Commercial Interiors certification for tenant Comcast's space and the Governor's Environmental and Economic Leadership Award.

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Klamath Boat Co.'s pending move to 13,000 square feet in Fairfield is part of a number of construction projects happening in that city, mostly in the Auto Mall, according to Curt Johnston, Fairfield economic development manager.

Publicly traded used-automobile chain CarMax of Richmond, Va., plans to occupy the two remaining buildings along Auto Mall Parkway. Price-Simms reopened Ford Fairfield in October with a Mazda dealership, and the company is building a 40,000-square-foot Mercedes Benz dealership.

Construction on a Lowe's Home Improvement store is set to start in April.

Vallejo-based Klamath, which makes welded aluminum alloy watercraft, is consolidating from a Mare Island manufacturing plant to part of a nearly 25,000-square-foot light-industrial building at 5199 Fulton Dr.

Eric Rehn of Cassidy Turley BT Commercial brokered the Klamath Boat deal for the three-plus-year lease.

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Submit items for this column to Jeff Quackenbush at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com, 707-521-4256 or fax 707-521-5292.

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