North Bay Business Journal

Nurses, NUHW hold daylong Kaiser strike

NORTH BAY — The National Union of Healthcare Workers is holding a day-long strike at Kaiser Permanente facilities throughout Northern California, including hospitals in Santa Rosa, San Rafael, Vallejo and Vacaville, as the union negotiates a new contract with the health system.

Solano EDC names Person president

Sandy Person has been named president for Solano Economic Development Corporation.

Kaiser gets trauma designation at Vacaville hospital

VACAVILLE — Kaiser Permanente’s Vacaville Medical Center received official approval by the Solano County Emergency Medical Services Agency to provide level III trauma services.

People: Week of Sept. 19, 2011

News about people on the move in among north San Francisco Bay Area businesses and organizations

Construction: Ceja winery project to break ground this summer

At a 10th anniversary celebration earlier this month, the Ceja family announced that its long-planned winery construction project will start later this summer. The goal is to begin building the first phase of a multimillion-dollar Ceja Vineyards winery among the family’s vines on the Napa County side of Los Carneros winegrowing region. … Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP signed a 10-year lease for 6,222 square feet at 709 Beck Ave. in Fairfield for its new regional office. The Houston-based pipeline and fuel storage company’s West Coast Products Pipelines business started a $48 million project at Travis Air Force Base in the city last fall and plans to complete it in March 2012. … San Rafael-based environmental consulting firm WRA Inc. promoted senior associates Dana Riggs, Justin Semion and Geoff Smick to associate principal. With these promotions, 11 of WRA’s 46 employees are now part-owners. … If you call what has been the number for Hearn Construction and then Tricorp Hearn Construction in Vacaville, you’ll still hear someone answer the phone Tricorp Hearn, but it’s also the number for a new Hearn family construction company. Jamie Healer and her father, Napa-Solano contractor icon Fred Hearn, have started a new venture called Hearn Enterprise, Inc. … HBI Construction of Newport Beach is busy improving 88,000 square feet of formerly vacant space at Stony Point Plaza shopping center in southwest Santa Rosa for Ross Dress for Less, discount clothier Fallas Parades, Anna’s Linens and Goodwill Industries of the Redwood Empire to occupy this fall. … Cotati-based The Fifth Resource Group, led by Jim Ford, now is focusing on project master planning, specifically in industrial engineering and project management, with the departure of James Henderson, AIA, for personal reasons.

Commercial Real Estate: Petaluma apartments attract $68 million

A 492-unit south Petaluma apartment complex, one of the largest in Sonoma County, sold for $68 million to a Southern California institutional investor, 15 months after it was purchased for $52 million. … A Sacramento-based real estate investor acquired a long-vacant former Yardbirds store in Vacaville with plans to upgrade the 45,000-square-foot building with 8,500 square feet of covered garden area and 6,000 square feet of yard space in the Browns Valley Marketplace shopping center. … Santa Rosa medical device startup Sapheon Inc. found a place to base development of a less-painful treatment for varicose veins. … Jim and Jennifer Jensen together with Lance and Dana Stafford, the third generation of ownership in Napa-based architectural ironworks shop Jensen’s Ornamental Inc., purchased a 6,350-square-foot warehouse at 561 California Blvd. in Napa from Sue Branson on Jan. 31 for $879,000. … San Rafael-based landscaping supplies retailer Watersavers Irrigation Inc. on Feb. 1 expanded and relocated its Petaluma store to 840 Perry Lane, a 10,000-square-foot industrial building that was vacant after it was completed in 2007, according to Keegan & Coppin agent Nathan Ballard.

Genentech to eliminate 100 jobs in Solano County

SOLANO – Roche, the parent company of Genentech, has announced it is cutting 4,800 positions worldwide, 100 of which are in Solano County.

Santa Rosa Courtyard by Marriott part of $56 million trustee sale

SANTA ROSA — The 138-room Courtyard by Marriott hotel is getting a new owner, general manager and guest-services upgrades.

A trustee’s sale of a portfolio of five hotels, including Courtyard by Marriott locations in Santa Rosa and Vacaville, is set for Dec. 6 in Petaluma to pay an unpaid loan balance of $56.7 million.

Kaiser workers vote to stay with SEIU

[Updated: 4 p.m.] CALIFORNIA — Kaiser Permanente employees throughout the state voted to remain with the Service Employees International Union–United Healthcare Workers West instead of joining its rival offshoot, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, according to the National Labor Relations Board.

NUHW is considering a legal challenge to the election.

Thousands of Kaiser employees start union vote

NORTH BAY – Kaiser Permanente employees throughout Northern California begin voting today in a costly, high-stakes election that will likely determine the influence of two quarreling unions, each seeking to represent nearly 44,000 workers.

Hearn, Nolan merge with Sacramento contractor

VACAVILLE — Napa Pacific Inc., known as commercial general contractors Hearn Construction and Nolan Construction, has merged with Sacramento-based Tricorp Construction to form Tricorp/Hearn.

Unions battle for Kaiser representation

NORTH BAY — The National Union of Healthcare Workers has petitioned for elections that would determine whether thousands of employees at Kaiser Permanente facilities could vote to join the upstart union or remain with the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West.

Commercial Real Estate: South Napa wine warehouse deals push down vacancy

About 265,000 square feet in wine warehouse deals were inked recently in the south Napa area, with 164,000 square feet of that being net market absorption. … Hundreds of thousands of square feet of big-box retail space has gone dark in the North Bay in the past two years, but a number of the spaces are getting scooped up by retailers looking to reduce the cost of expanding into the market. … Four agents and brokers affiliated with Orion Partners, which closed earlier this year, have landed new associations. … As the city of Healdsburg narrows its list of consultants that will prepare long-range land-use plans for the central part of the city, longtime lumber vendor Nu Forest Products is vying to be considered as a transit-friendly mixed-use redevelopment site about a block south of the Plaza. …

Hollywood Video parent to close all stores

NORTH BAY – Movie Gallery Inc. is closing all its U.S. video and game rental stores, which includes six Hollywood Video and Game Crazy locations in the North Bay.

Napa-Solano county industrial: Some new demand in 2010 as tenants see excellent terms

The industrial markets of Napa and Solano counties are seeing a modest amount of demand as we head into 2010.

Napa-Solano apartments: Rent incentives common as cap rates show improvement

Assuming that historical indicators hold true, the recession is over, we are told, and the economy is starting to rebound at some level.

Accounting: Napa’s G&J Seiberlich splits, expands

Also: New hires at Moss Adams, partners at BPM

Solano Business: Delayed Kaiser Permanente Vacaville hospital to open in October

Kaiser Permanente’s $500 million Vacaville hospital will officially open Oct. 6 following a decision to delay the project in the wake of the ailing economy.

High-wage life sciences seen as critical to region’s future

SOLANO – Solano’s life science cluster is healthy and thriving, offering high-wage jobs for the county, according to a recent a report issued by the Solano Economic Development Corp.

Market for solar power identified in affordable housing

Integrated Power Corp., or iPower, in Novato recently signed on with affordable housing developer Urban Housing Communities to design and install solar energy systems in many of its 17 current and proposed housing projects throughout the state. Low-income tax credits, combined with state and federal solar tax credits, are bringing solar systems to people who [...]