The legendary San Francisco columnist and imbiber of Vitamin V (vodka), Herb Caen, was famous for building columns on little items separated by ellipses as well as running blind items where everybody in town could deduce the subject, but nobody could sue Caen or the Voice of the West, the moniker the Hearst tribe hung on its daily.
Caen would have had a field day with this one. Now that Marin General Hospital and Sutter Health have agreed to disagree and go their separate ways, the fallout from the divorce is beginning to find its feet. While Sutter was under contract to run the Greenbrae Hospital, the management sung off-key blues about how little cash the hospital made. Once the hospital district voted to turn Sutter loose, seems Marin General turned into Lourdes, not only healing the sick and the lame, but also throwing off enough cash to have Sutter pull out almost $90 million over a two-year period. Not that Sutter’s management donned masks and made the move in the middle of the night. The public body made up of 13 right-minded citizens charged with looking out for the public interest apparently found nothing unusual about a management company yanking out millions to underwrite losses at other Sutter facilities.
As juicy as that is, the best may be yet to come. Way back in 2007, Sutter spent $46 million buying up the Marin Square Shopping Center. The strip mall’s anchor tenant is Ross, and the center is best known as gathering place for day laborers looking for construction and handyman work. Originally, Sutter promised to open a rival hospital on the property, but now it’s morphed into an “ambulatory care delivery location in Marin,” according to Sutter’s West Bay President Martin Brotman.
Sutter also bought a neighboring property of 3.5 acres for $5.9 million that includes a car repair shop and a tire store. Conventional wisdom says Sutter will tear the buildings down, especially since a garage doesn’t mesh with ambulatory care delivery. All told, Sutter owns almost 11 acres in the Marin Square area.
But buying property is expensive. The same year Sutter bought Marin Square, it purchased 100 and 101 Rowland Way in Novato, as the buildings are near Novato Community Hospital, a Sutter facility. Sutter is currently chasing down some alleged back rent from Sonic Solutions, a company that had a lease for space in the 101 building. Sonic is now located on Redwood Boulevard in Novato. Sutter has sued for $475,000 in Marin Superior Court for back rent, fees and interest.
Sutter may be in the healing business, but it would seem that the health care company does a fair job of bleeding others.
Southern Marin hotels change hands, names
The landmark Casa Madrona Hotel, the iconic inn that filed for bankruptcy after investors failed to pay back millions in loans, was bought by Sima Management Corp. of Santa Barbara for $11.4 million. Sima’s bid was the only one received. The hotel was owned by Uncle Sam after the investors defaulted on a $24 million loan owed to Integrity Bank of Georgia, which went belly up and was seized by the Feds. While Uncle Sam may not be thrilled with the price of the hotel, the city of Sausalito is all smiles. The hotel kicks in 40 percent of the total occupancy cash flowing to City Hall, and Sima has promised to sink capital into it to bring it back to its previous stature.
Larkspur Hotels and Restaurants bought the Holiday Inn Mill Valley, spent $3 million renovating the hotel by the bay, and is now calling it Larkspur Hotel Mill Valley, making it the only hotel in the county with two different locations attached to its name.
Does this mean the hotel will have an identity crisis? A split personality? If it’s anything like other Larkspur properties (it has 25 hotels in California, Oregon and Washington, including the Lodge at Tiburon), it’ll make the other area hotels step up.
Paper or plastic?
Ross Grocery, a community landmark in a town where everybody gets their mail at the post office, has been purchased by Don Santa, who owns Woodlands Market in Kentfield. Ross Grocery, opened in 1946, was owned by Don Aherns.
Santa has promised the ownership transition will be seamless, and it’s a good bet he’ll pull it off. Santa lives in Ross, and is well aware of the high regard the residents of this moneyed neighborhood have for the store.
The Ross store isn’t the only move Santa has planned. He’s looking to open a Woodlands Market in Tiburon next year.
CVS’s move toward world domination
CVS/Pharmacy, the company that bought out Long’s Drugs, is leasing the old Elephant Pharm site on Grand Avenue in San Rafael. It will be the eighth CVS location in Marin when it opens this fall. The space is 12,000 square feet and the Rhode Island-based CVS plans on expanding parking.
Ferraris and submarines
Tom Price of Price Dealership fame just picked up a collection of 21 Ferraris from a bankrupt distributor in Europe. Word is that Price plans to sell off all but one of the sports cars, and some of them may already have been sold in Europe and on the East Coast.
Price is known to have quite the personal collection of exotic wheels and one of the Ferraris is destined for his Belvedere digs. Price owns Marin Scion Toyota, Infiniti of San Rafael, Land Rover and Volvo in Corte Madera, which also includes Jaguar and Aston Martin.
Hawkes Ocean Technologies sold a DeepFlight Merlin submersible winged vehicle to Richard Branson, the creator of the Virgin brand. The founders of Hawkes are Graham and Karen Hawkes who hang their hats in San Anselmo, though the company works out of Point Richmond. The two person sub (plus pilot) can plunge to 100 feet and lists at a cool $673,000—spare change for Branson.
