North Bay Business Journal

NORTH BAY — As median home prices climb sharply in the North Bay, a recent report by real estate data tracker RealtyTrac shows that the Santa Rosa-Petaluma market is one of the most profitable nationwide for “flipping” homes.

Unemployment rates across the North Coast continued to fall, with every county improving its jobless rate over both the last month and over the year, according to figures released by the Economic Development Department.

A Sonoma County-based nonprofit and several others with ties in the North Bay are among 48 organizations across the state to share in $37 million in outreach and education grants from Covered California, the state’s online health exchange developed under health care reform.

Petaluma-based Redwood Community Health Coalition received $830,000. Catholic Charities of California, which has a presence in Solano, Napa, Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino counties, received $859,000. California Rural Indian Health Board, which has a presence in Sonoma and Mendocino counties, was given $300,000. The California NAACP, which has locations in Sonoma and Solono counties, received $600,000 and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Solano County received $100,00.

NORTH BAY — More capital is flowing to North Bay small businesses through loan programs backed by the U.S. Small Business Administration, with a 10.4 percent increase in dollar volume funded in Sonoma, Marin and Napa counties comparing the first half of the administration’s fiscal year to the same period one year ago, according to data from the SBA.

Spotlight on leading SBA lenders in the North Bay

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

Kaiser Permanente employees in California, including about 4,700 in the North Bay, voted to stay with their current trade union, rather than switching, according to results announced Thursday afternoon by the National Labor Relations Board.

VACAVILLE — From WiFi and Bluetooth to the possible harvesting of solar power from space, the humble radio frequency wave is having something of a high-tech heyday.

Vacaville startup RF Biocidics is greening up the processing of fruits, nuts and potentially a wide range of foods by subjecting them to low-frequency radio waves.

Site preparation is set to begin in May for large shopping center and distribution warehouse projects in Petaluma and Fairfield: 346,000-square-foot Deer Creek Village and 791,000-square-foot Solano Logistics Center. …

Richard Coney, senior property manager in the Santa Rosa office of Keegan & Coppin, and Justin Barton, a property manager in the brokerage’s Larkspur office, earned the Certified Property Manager designation. …

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Leaders of major health care organizations in Sonoma and Marin, Napa and Solano counties, listed alphabetically by their names.

Unemployment rates across the North Bay dropped in February, in some counties by more than a full percentage point, as the January holiday lull in hiring gave way to positive growth in a number of industries, according to preliminary state figures released Friday.

Five of the six North Bay counties added 13,900 jobs over 12 months.

FAIRFIELD — Solano County is enjoying a resurgence in jobs and taxable sales, but high home foreclosure rates and indications of job importation are among regional improvements needed for the local economy fully to rebound, an economist said Thursday.