Behind the façade

Construction of a new office building is underway behind the familiar front wall of the Sonoma Index-Tribune at 117 West Napa Street. When completed in the spring of 2017, the building will be home to the newspaper (now working out of temporary offices across the street), Krave Pure Foods, Inc., and Sonoma Brands LLC.

Though part of the original plan, the parcel is no longer part of the adjacent hotel development proposed by Kenwood Investments for the block. “We had previously included it in early designs,” Kenwood’s Bill Hooper told the Index-Tribune. “After getting community feedback, we cut the size of the hotel in half and took the I-T building out of the mix.”

The front façade will be preserved during construction to comply with the state and federal standards for “historically significant” buildings. “The SIT has been in this building for over 70 years,” Hooper said in the paper. “It will be built to last the next 70 years.”