Petaluma-based Cowgirl Creamery and its sister wholesaler Tomales Bay Foods are expanding their storage and distribution capabilities in the city.
Cowgirl signed a lease with Basin Street Properties on Sept. 17 for 24,000 square feet at 2084 Lakeville Hwy. in south Petaluma. Cowgirl plans to keep its base of operations in Basin Street's Foundry Wharf commercial complex in downtown Petaluma, according to real estate sources.
Cowgirl officials declined to comment on the expansion other than to note the planned move-in would be in the middle of the first quarter of 2014. The city of Petaluma is processing an application for tenant improvements at 2084 Lakeville, according to planning officials.
Tony Sarno of Cushman & Wakefield represented Cowgirl in the lease. Steven Leonard, Trevor Buck and Brian Foster represented Basin Street Properties.***
Prospects for the long-envisioned Santa Rosa Food & Wine Center in one of two planned mixed-used developments at the SMART depot in Santa Rosa's Railroad Square might be farther off because of a shortage of parking and the stalled timeframe for one of those redevelopments, the property controlled by The John Stewart Co. Yet the owner of the former DeTurk Winery building near the square is recrafting its own redevelopment plan to accommodate such a food venue, claiming demand in the district for high-end attached residential dwellings still awaits those depot projects.
Railroad Square Village, LLC, has faced challenges with occupancy in large portions of the winery-turned-warehouse at West Ninth and Donahue streets at the north end of the Railroad Square district. In the past two years there have been legal battles with former major tenant Zap, a Santa Rosa-based electric and gas vehicle maker, over its lease there and ownership of intellectual property for the Aptera electric and gas vehicle, a venture set to be assembled in the building, according to Rick Deringer, a consultant for Railroad Square Village and promoter of the Aptera venture.
The SMART depot projects would kick-start sales of 73 approved single-family attached homes and condominiums in a redevelopment of the warehouse, a project called DeTurk Winery Village, according to Mr. Deringer.
On Nov. 5, the city of Santa Rosa approved zoning clearance for a "neighborhood center" and restaurant in 7,500 square feet of the center of the building, part of a space currently occupied on a month-to-month basis by Careful Moving & Storage. The approval includes allowance for a proposed project to provide parking inside the building for the market and restaurants.
Mr. Deringer said he might request that zoning allowance be expanded to apply to 15,000 square feet of the building.
There would still be 73 units, but they would be on the ends of building, along Eighth and Ninth streets. In the middle would be tenants such as CrossFit Santa Rosa, which has leased 15,000 square feet, and the marketplace.
Mr. Deringer has toured the building with Steve Carlin, mastermind of Oxbow Public Market and the San Francisco Ferry Building marketplace as well as an idea generator behind the Santa Rosa Food & Wine Center. There's no consulting contract yet with Napa Valley-based Carlin Co., which currently is identifying a redevelopment site to house Sacramento Public Market.***
DBI Beverage Napa, Inc., a North Bay distributing company for La Vergne, Tenn.-based DBI Beverage, purchased a nearly 60,000-square-foot, 13-year-old distribution warehouse at 2449 S. Watney Way in Solano Business Park in Fairfield for expansion.
The seller was Watney D&S, an affiliate of San Francisco-based investor Lowenberg Corp., represented by Matt Bracco, Glen Dowling and Chris Neeb of Cushman & Wakefield. Watney D&S purchased the building in 2007.
The Fairfield distributorship, which has a branch facility in Ukiah, is one of eight DBI has in California. The newly acquired warehouse is about one mile south of the interchange of Interstate 80 and Highway 12.
Trevor Buck, Tim Schmid and Joel McAlister of Cassidy Turley represented buyer DBI Beverage Napa in the Oct. 7 sale.***
[caption id="attachment_83761" align="alignright" width="360"] This former Sola Optical USA building at 2277 Pine View Way was part of the recently delisted Superfund cleanup site in Petaluma.[/caption]
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency dropped from its Superfund National Priorities List of toxics-cleanup sites the former Sola Optical USA campus on Lakeville Highway at the south end of Petaluma.
The delisting on Nov. 1 ends a 30-year federal and state investigation and cleanup of the 35-acre site. California Regional Water Quality Control Board first ordered investigations in 1983, and the site was placed on the federal Superfund list in 1990.
Between 1978 and 2001, Sola owned and operated the optical-lens manufacturing plant, consisting of a office and warehouse in 120,500 square feet at 2277 Pine View Way and manufacturing in 100,000 square feet at 2299 Pine View.
As a result of Sola Optical’s manufacturing processes, chlorinated solvents and other chemicals were released into the soil and groundwater. Sola Optical shut the plant and sold it in 2001. Current owner LBA Realty has leased them to other tenants.
Sola Optical completed an investigation and initial soil removal, and the EPA in 1991 issued a final cleanup plan. Last year, monitoring data showed groundwater at the site was found to meet cleanup goals, no longer posing a current or future threat....
Submit items for this column to Business Journal Staff Reporter Jeff Quackenbush, jquackenbush@busjrnl.com, 707-521-4256.
