North Bay Business Journal

The “Top Deals and the People Who Made Them Happen” represent the top leases and sales in Marin, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties. They are based on submissions by brokerages and Business Journal research.

Commercial real estate leases and sales in the north San Francisco Bay Area

Melissa Bastianon and Cathy Miller are the newest members of Frank Howard Allen Realtors’ Sebastopol office. …

Michael Moffett, a Coldwell Banker Commercial Brokers of the Valley agent in Napa, earned a spot in the company’s Bronze Level Circle of Distinction. …

Jeanette Ditter, a sales associate in Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage’s Santa Rosa office, earned membership in the company’s International Diamond Society. …

Petaluma-based Cyan appointed Joe Cumello chief marketing officer. …

Sonoma County Tourism certified its 500th “tourism ambassador”: Randy Johnson, owner of Getaway Adventures. …

NAPA — Napa Valley hosted 2.94 million visitors in 2012, generating $1.4 billion in direct tourism spending, and more than three-quarters of them come for dining and wine tasting, according to results from two studies released Thursday.

NAPA — Fifty-four rental townhomes and a 124-unit apartment complex on the Sheveland Ranch property in south Napa sold to a San Francisco real estate investment firm for $39.5 million.

SANTA ROSA — To help strengthen local business access to global markets, keep jobs at home and provide North Bay companies with information they can use to expand and facilitate foreign trade, the Sonoma County Economic Development Board and the U.S. Department of Commerce plan to co-host a first-of-its-kind export seminar in Petaluma on May 9.

In other import-export news, a proposed expansion of the existing Foreign Trade Zone No. 3 to encompass much of the North Bay has moved closer to completion.

Given continued uncertainties around immigration policy in Washington and Sacramento and the budding of a 2013 crop that could be decent-sized, North Coast winegrape growers are looking for ways to stretch labor farther so they aren’t as short-handed as a number were during the record-volume 2012 season.

Business owners, particularly in the wine industry that makes up a significant proportion of the North Coast economy, need to pay attention to major health care insurance, tax and estate law changes this year to avoid steep noncompliance penalties and mitigate significant tax increases, according to local tax-planning and insurance experts.

Vintners and growers of winegrapes often emphasize the value of vineyard terroir, a French term for the contributions of the distinctiveness of a certain location in wine quality. Yet what’s not often realized is what boosts the prestige of vineyards in one area over those in another also can be a big bonus in tax savings.

FAIRFIELD — Partnership HealthPlan of California, a nonprofit that administers Medi-Cal benefits in six counties, said recently that it is looking to fill 100 positions over the next 12 months after expanding significantly further into Northern California.

Commercial real estate leases and sales in the north San Francisco Bay Area

Bank of Marin hired Jim Burke as chief information officer. …

Zero Breast Cancer, a nonprofit organization in Marin County, will honor the following individuals and organizations for their contributions to the understanding of breast cancer: David Gullion, M.D., Carol Kronenwetter, Ph.D., Regan Fedric.

The 2013 Francine Levien Activist honorees are Stig Westling, MBA, Jonathan Mooney, MBA and Janine Elliott, MBA, co-founders of Skip to Renew, a company that was launched through the Dominican University Venture Greenhouse. …

Michael Gregory, sales associate with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage’s Petaluma office, has been awarded membership in the company’s International Sterling Society, an honor bestowed upon the top Coldwell Banker sales associates worldwide. …

Rebecca Celli, sales associate with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage’s Petaluma office, has earned membership into the company’s International President’s Circle, a prestigious honor bestowed upon the top Coldwell Banker sales associates worldwide. …

Sodaro Estate Winery appointed a new winemaking team: Denis Malbec and May-Britt Malbec. …

Demand continues to outpace supply for housing markets in the North Bay and the Bay Area, and housing prices continue to climb skyward at double-digit rates, according to a monthly housing report by San Diego-based DataQuick.

Unemployment rates across the North Bay in March dropped several percentage points, and Sonoma County had its best year-over-year job growth in 12 years, according to state figures released this morning.

NAPA — While assets and pre-tax income have grown at Bank of Napa, N.A. (OTCBB: BNNP), the bank announced today that net income was 9.4 percent lower comparing the first three months of 2013 to the same period in 2012. The change was largely attributable to a reduction in the bank’s income tax benefit from the prior year, according to the announcement.

Shipments of wine directly to consumers from wineries in Napa and Sonoma counties, accounting for 69 percent of such shipments from U.S. sources, last year grew at 8.0 percent and 10.1 percent in value, respectively, helping push U.S. winery-to-consumer shipment value past that of wine exports for the first time, according to a new study.

NAPA — La Saison Napa Valley opened a commercial kitchen in Napa to support its custom-events business as well as produce specialty foods.

Commercial real estate leases and sales in the north San Francisco Bay Area

NAPA — The value of the 2012 winegrape crop in Napa County increased nearly 55 percent to $656.2 million from 2011, according to the final official tally released today for the record-setting season.

Voting began last week in the long-running battle for union control at Kaiser Permanente facilities throughout California, with some 45,000 workers set to choose — for the second time in nearly three years — between rivals Service Employees International Union’ United Healthcare Workers West and the National Union of Healthcare Workers.