North Bay Business Journal

Workrite Ergonomics, which makes high-end accessories intended to help office workers be more productive, is itself looking to become more efficient with a move of its headquarters to another south Petaluma location this summer. … In a pending deal to make the Workrite relocation work, existing 2277 Pine View tenant Scott Laboratories would be relocated to another side of the building and expanded from 15,000 to 33,000 square feet. … Basin Street Properties has wasted little time bringing in additional tenants occupying more than 11,000 square feet in two of the four Redwood Business Park buildings it re-acquired in Petaluma in March.

Sonoma County office vacancy rates decreased in the third quarter to 22.7 percent 13.7 million square feet from a peak of 24.8 percent at the end of last year and was about the same as it was in the fall of 2009, according to Keegan & Coppin.

NOVATO – BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. is expanding across Hwy. 101 into 20,000 square feet on Wood Hollow Lane.

LARKSPUR and SANTA ROSA — Santa Clara-based Cornish & Carey Commercial today said it will merge its 13 real estate brokerage offices, including two new ones in the North Bay, next month with Newmark Knight Frank, a New York-based commercial real estate brokerage and advisory.

The purchase of a never-occupied 166,200-square-foot southwest Santa Rosa building by the founders of a growing Sebastopol-based hydroponics equipment supplier may be part of swelling industrial real estate activity not seen for two years.

The multifamily property investment market in many North Bay markets seems to be stabilizing and could strengthen further in the third quarter as owners further adjust rents and sale pricing to reflect major shifts in market behavior.

SAN RAFAEL — Orion Partners, once the North Bay’s second largest commercial real estate brokerage with a string of market-topping deals in its 15-year history, is in receivership to pay more than $500,000 in bank debt, its headquarters has been taken back by the landlord and former agents have gone to court for unpaid commissions.

Whole Foods resumes Coddingtown store work; Petaluma industrial heats up

NOVATO — The sudden announcement last week that Disney will be shutting its 450-employee ImageMovers Digital animation studio could act as a wake-up call to Marin County, said the head of the newly formed Marin Economic Forum.

As has been reported widely, the 2009 Marin County office market was difficult for building owners as transactions dwindled to a trickle and the national severe slowing of the economy visited Marin County, although not as severely as many other national and even Bay Area markets.

LARKSPUR and SANTA ROSA – Cornish & Carey Commercial, which has 11 offices in the greater Bay Area, is making a big move into North Bay commercial real estate brokerage with two offices and 17 agents, almost all of them formerly affiliated with Orion Partners.