North Bay Business Journal

SANTA ROSA — Basin Street Properties has regained its position as the largest owner of commercial real estate in Sonoma County with the repurchase of 17 Santa Rosa office buildings it sold seven years ago.

The sales of 20 mostly office buildings in Marin and Sonoma counties, totaling 951,000 square feet, by Chicago-based Equity Office and Berg Holdings of Sausalito are moving closer to completion. …

The Dowling-Bracco Team of Cushman & Wakefield in San Rafael just won the marketing contract for Copia in Napa and is positioning the two-story, steel-framed building at 500 First St. as a potential corporate headquarters site. …

Two Grubb & Ellis agents join Colliers International in Fairfield.

Two major owners of commercial property in Marin and Sonoma counties have put 20 office buildings with 951,000 square feet on the market for sale in recent weeks in what some market watchers are anticipating will test institutional investor views of the long-term outlook for the North Bay business community.

LARKSPUR — Digital Domain Productions, Inc., a digital effects and computer animation company led by former Industrial Light & Magic top executives, by the end of this year plans to open a Larkspur Landing office that could accommodate 47 employees.

PETALUMA — Cornerstone Properties SA LLC has expanded its North Bay commercial real estate holdings with the purchase of two former Equity Office buildings in Petaluma with a total of 93,000 square feet.

PETALUMA — Gluing Machinery and Systems Inc. is moving one building away on McDowell Boulevard in Petaluma and has plans to expand.

SANTA ROSA — A San Francisco-based real estate investor and developer recently acquired a five-building, 70,000-square-foot office complex in southwest Santa Rosa that had been part of a large North Bay commercial property portfolio until foreclosure last year.

SANTA ROSA — Morgan Stanley Smith Barney’s planned consolidation of its two Santa Rosa offices early next year will nearly fill one of the newest top-end office buildings in the city.

SANTA ROSA — Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC plans to consolidate its Santa Rosa offices to a new 23,000-square-foot location in the northeast part of the city early next year.

SANTA ROSA — The county of Sonoma plans to consolidate its job-seeker services to one 46,300-square-foot office in southwest Santa Rosa next spring to handle a growing number of clients without work.

SANTA ROSA and PETALUMA – Ten office buildings in Petaluma and five in Santa Rosa totaling nearly 400,000 square feet were given back to lenders recently as part of The Blackstone Group’s effort to keep afloat a nearly $5 billion securitized commercial property loan connected to the record-setting acquisition of Equity Office in 2007.

The Business Journal profiled 23 leading managers of North Bay investment real estate. That includes office, industrial, retail, multifamily and single-family properties for which the owners have entrusted handling of tenant relations, marketing, maintenance and other related services.

SANTA ROSA – The prospect of having to spend thousands of dollars to comply with tighter water rationing couldn’t come at a worse time for commercial property owners who are dealing with shrinking revenue.

PETALUMA — Basin Street Properties, which helped usher in the telecommunications boom in Sonoma County, is selling off its remaining buildings in the heart of Petaluma’s Telecom Valley as well as a broad portfolio of other holdings in Santa Rosa and Novato.