Development update, cookbooks and winning Ringo
As far as the big Sonoma development projects go, the ones we’ve been hearing about for years, i.e. the Anderson Hotel and Broadway/MacArthur, there aren’t any major developments to report. The hotel proposed for the 100 block of West Napa Street has been scaled down since its debut as Chateau Sonoma; the team is now preparing the requisite Environmental Impact Report. When complete in several months, it goes to the Planning Commission for certification. The city plans to combine that public hearing and decision with a vote to approve the project as a whole… Across the street, at 160-ish West Napa, sit the empty structures that once housed the Three House Media empire. The campus is now owned by Michael Marino, who, about 18 months ago, received Planning Commission approval to convert the buildings into vacation rentals. But there’s been no official movement (building permits, etc.) on the project as yet. (The landscape will change, in more ways than one, when the hotel gets underway) … Now we move to Mission Square, a mix of office space and apartments just east of the Plaza with an entrance near the Blue Wing Inn. After 14 years of grand plans, mostly contested and rejected, the project got the full green light in February of 2014. Water-related issues , though, have stalled construction… The juiciest morsel comes from the old Broadway Truck and Auto site, where, after two rounds of plans involving a mix of residential, hotel, retail and a gourmet marketplace, the project team has been dismissed. It’s back to square one, a square now home to a crappy old building and a big patch of cracked cement.
Back to 122 W. Napa St., where Seana Davis will host a cookbook exchange at Epicurean Connection on Wednesday, September 16, from 3 to 6 p.m. Leftovers (so to speak) go to the library… For all the Martha, Emeril and Rachel fluff, it’s still all about Julia, James and Jacque. Best secret go-to: Silver Palate… “I’d use more Williams-Sonoma cookbooks,” cracks one wisenheimer, “but I can’t afford the imported bookmark.”
The Sonoma County property tax assessment roll has hit an all-time high, improving 6.9 percent over the year to hit $76.6 billion. A big chunk came from restoring full tax rates on properties that had received a break during the recession. At the height (depth?) of the crisis, more than 62,000 property values, about half of the residential properties in Sonoma County, were temporarily reduced. Now only 21k get that requested break. That’s what happens when you re-build the bubble.
Sonoma Overnight Support, the nonprofit that helps the Sonoma homeless, is staging a drawing to win a pair of Sonoma Music festival tickets. As the three shows (October 2, Chicago and America; October 3, Ringo Starr; and October 4, Doobie Brothers with Michael McDonald, Greg Allman) are likely sell-outs, this might me your one shot to get in. How? Buy a $100 ticket at Sonomaovernightsupport.org. A little help from their friends is all they ask.
— Val Robichaud
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