North Bay Business Journal

United Healthcare will roll out its Signature Value Alliance network geared toward smaller employers in all of Northern California in 2013, with Sutter Health serving as the foundation for the HMO product, the Minnesota-based health insurer said.

NOVATO — Ctuit Software has been helping restaurant chain owners better manage finances and operations for more than a decade, and now the maker of those tools is seeing to it that it has the talent and infrastructure in place to manage its own fast growth.

WINDSOR — Wine Country Shipping plans to more than double the size of its Windsor facilities next year to satisfy vintner demand for casegoods storage.

SAN RAFAEL — Video game developer and publisher Telltale Inc. has quite a tale of success to tell with its story-based episodic entertainment such as The Walking Dead fast-selling series, and now the 8-year-old company is planning to nearly double the size of its studio in an expansion this spring.

NOVATO — SPG Solar, which designs and installs commercial photovoltaic energy systems, plans to move its headquarters to Petaluma to have room to grow, particularly in product development.

PETALUMA – Donal Machine has upped its capacity by 50 percent with the purchase of a state-of-the-art laser cutter. The ISO-certified precision metal fabrication company bought a German-made Trumf cutter for “just under a million dollars” according to vice president and co-owner Bob Bergstedt.

SANTA ROSA — Smith Dollar PC opened the firm’s third office, located in Lewisville, Texas, giving the financial services law firm now a presence in three states — California, Florida and now Texas.

ST. HELENA — Blicker Pierce Wagner Wine Merchants, an online retailer of fine and rare collectibles that is better known as BP Wine, and the owners’ “flash” online wine sales venture Last Bottle Wines are growing so quickly that they are have secured a much larger south Napa warehouse.

Santa Monica-based game software maker Activision Blizzard expanded its Toys For Bob development studio at Hamilton Landing in Novato as the team there released a latest installment for one of the hottest-selling games. …

Third-quarter vacancy and absorption figures for Sonoma, Marin and Napa counties have been released. …

Shiloh Oaks Co., owned by the Caletti family that operated Standard Structures in Windsor, has been transforming 300,000-square-foot complex of lumber millwork and storage buildings into a multitenant industrial, warehouse and basic office property called Standard Industrial. There are now more than a dozen existing industrial-use tenants and four newcomers. …

SANTA ROSA — American AgCredit plans to build a new, 50,000-square-foot headquarters in Santa Rosa, with company executives citing the expertise of current staff and a regional talent pool as key drivers to keep its administrative nucleus on the West Coast at a time of rapid national expansion.

NOVATO — 2K, a video-game publishing label of New York-based Take-Two Interactive Software (Nasdaq: TTWO), is expanding its 64,000-square-foot Novato headquarters and two development studios by 30 percent.

FAIRFIELD — Partnership HealthPlan of California will expand into Lake County, giving the nonprofit managed Medi-Cal plan a foothold in all six North Bay counties and more than 200,000 enrollees throughout Northern California.

PETALUMA — Raydiance wants to significantly increase production of its high-precision lasers in the next year and is expanding its manufacturing workforce to match a recent move to a larger headquarters and $20 million in new capital that has made both possible.

NAPA and RICHMOND — Two major suppliers of bottle-decoration services are significantly upgrading their production capacity as more vintners turn to screen printing to as a luxurious-looking label alternative.

PETALUMA — After scrambling for months to keep up with skyrocketing national demand for its locally produced beer, Lagunitas Brewing Co. completed a four-fold, $15 million expansion of its Petaluma brewery in July.

The Kress Building in downtown Santa Rosa was sold. It has 18,600 square feet of rentable retail and office space in the 80-year-old building at 613 and 615 Fourth St. …

Wine order fulfillment services provider Wineshipping last month expanded its new Napa base of operations to nearly 208,000 square feet, according to the Dowling-Bracco Team of Cushman & Wakefield, who represented both sides of the new lease. …

Moresco Distributing Co. of Petaluma signed a two-year lease of 14,000 square feet at 1460 Cader Ln. in that city to manage the rapid expansion needs of the nearly 2-decade-old company. …

North Bay manufacturers EO Products, Biosearch Technologies and Anette’s Chocolates are expanding their production plants this summer and fall.

NOVATO — BioMarin Pharmaceutical will soon move into 120,000 square feet of offices in the San Rafael Corporate Center, the result of a significant expansion that will generate 100 new jobs for the Novato-based pharmaceutical company that specializes in making treatments for rare and serious disease.

SANTA ROSA — Star Staffing announced that it has opened a new office near the Sonoma County airport in Santa Rosa, marking the Petaluma-based staffing company’s fourth office in Northern California.

PETALUMA — Biosearch Technologies Inc., an early pioneer in developing life science tools, plans to expand to Petaluma to provide room for continued growth.