Owners of Montgomery Village negotiating sale of Santa Rosa shopping center to Boston-area developer
The owners of the landmark Montgomery Village shopping center in Santa Rosa are negotiating a potential sale of the property to a Boston-area developer that specializes in building and managing commercial projects combining stores, restaurants and offices.
David and Melissa Codding, owners of the east side shopping center, have informed tenants they are engaged in talks to sell Montgomery Village to WS Development Co., after being contacted by the company last summer.
Hugh Codding, David’s late father, opened the neighborhood retail destination 71 years ago on land that had been an orchard. For decades, the outdoor complex has been a popular place for generations of Sonoma County families to shop, eat and gather for musical performances.
The role the Montgomery Village development — the shopping center and its nearby homes — played in Sonoma County was significant, said Gaye LeBaron, noted local historian and longtime Press Democrat columnist.
“It’s like what Rodeo Drive is to Southern California,” LeBaron said. “If you want upscale shops in Santa Rosa, you go to Montgomery Village.”
Hugh Codding, who died in 2010, played a key role in the growth of Santa Rosa when he persuaded the village’s residents in 1955 to vote for annexation into the city instead of incorporating into their own municipality. Santa Rosa's population then increased from less than 18,000 to more than 30,000 after the annexation.
“He had tremendous influence. Those were his people,” LeBaron said of the residents who voted for annexation.
Many of those homeowners had started families in the post World War II baby boom and would fuel the city’s growth through the 1950s and into the 1960s.
Now decades later, David and Melissa Codding are likely to make a significant return on the family investment through a sale. The 300,000-square-foot shopping center could fetch as much as an estimated $90 million based on per-square-foot value in the retail sector, said Thomas Laugero, a partner at Keegan and Coppin, a commercial real estate sales and leasing company locally for decades.
The Coddings wrote to tenants in a March 12 letter that “WS is now conducting their discovery and due diligence regarding the possible purchase of Montgomery Village.”
Jonathan Rauch of WS Development wrote his own introductory letter March 18 to store operators at the Santa Rosa center.
Rauch wrote that any agreement by his company to acquire Montgomery Village was “several months away” but WS Development “was humbled by our selection and excited to take the property into its eighth decade.”
The Press Democrat obtained copies of both letters sent to tenants. Following multiple inquiries from the newspaper in the past couple of weeks about plans for the shopping center, David Codding confirmed Monday in an email to a reporter that he and his wife sent a “heartfelt letter to our merchants so they knew what would be taking place over the next few months.”
“As noted in the letter, should the sale go through, then my wife and I, together with WS Development, would send out a joint news release,” Codding said in the email. “Until the process is complete and final determination is made, there is not a comment that I can add other than what was provided to our merchants, which you now have.”
Rauch did not respond to messages left for him by The Press Democrat.
In their letter to tenants, the Coddings said they have been pondering the past few years what would be best for Montgomery Village when they decided to retire. Their daughter, Alexis, is a senior in college in Southern California who plans to pursue a graduate degree, and ultimately wants to be a marine biology professor, they wrote, rather than taking over management of the shopping center.
“Ultimately, we realize that we could not ask her to give up her dreams and aspirations to come back to Sonoma County and take over the reins of running the Village,” according to the Coddings’ letter.
As they assessed their options, the Coddings told their merchants they wanted a company with ownership and management experience of similar retail properties that “would own and manage the Village that is akin to our own management style we have developed over the past 35 years.”
They wrote that Rauch contacted them “unexpectedly” late last summer and said WS Development was interested in “possibly purchasing our Montgomery Village.”
After long talks with him, including in person when he recently visited the North Bay, the Coddings learned that the Chestnut Hill, Mass., developer owns and operates “open air, lifestyle properties” like their Santa Rosa shopping center, they wrote to tenants.