Turns out Napa Valley may not become as “ritzy” as we once thought. The development group with eyes on building a Ritz-Carlton in downtown Napa defaulted on its loan to the tune of $44.3 million, according to September reports filed at the Napa County Recorder’s office. I moved from Los Angeles to avoid the likes of the Ritz-Carlton crowd, but I’ve begun to wonder if we’re setting the supper table and inviting them to dinner. I love the bevy of restaurants that have cropped up over the last three years, and I can just barely swallow all the new tasting rooms that continue to sprout as wildly as the grapes, but do we really want to be any more of a showplace for the rich and famous than what we’ve already become? For some, it appears, we might.
Developer Brad Weiser, who’s been working on the project since 2008, is still committed to the idea of a Ritz—though he’s stammered recently about the possibility of a “different” brand of elitist hotel. We can only hope.
Develop this
In more development news, the city of Napa is biting back—after losing development funds to the state—by opting to enter into a sales tax revenue sharing agreement with the new owner of the Napa Town Center, set to morph into the glammed-up The Shops at Napa Center. Now things are getting interesting, if not a bit convoluted. In this agreement, the city will rebate a portion of sales tax growth in exchange for improvements to the public common-use areas of the space. The agreement will remain in effect for 12 years or when the developer has received a cool $5 million in tax revenue, whichever comes first.
While developer Todd Zapolski has remained rather hush when it comes to specifics on the types of shops that will ultimately reside in the space, he’s gone as far as tossing around names like Apple. To further the chi-chi cause, The Shops at Napa Center played poster child for the Napa Valley Film Festival, hosting the kick-off and wrap parties to raise awareness and likely create hype around the project. Meanwhile, long-standing tenants seem to be vacating with verve. Could it be the ever-increasing rental rates? It’ll be interesting to see how this public-private partnership shakes out in 2013. An unrelated casualty includes the unfortunate closure of St. Helena’s Silverado Brewing Company, at the hands of property owner Jackson Family Wines. Strike two in small town, big biz.
Napa Pipe rallies on
While the year is winding down, one of Napa County’s most controversial projects is not. In October, supporters of the Napa Pipe project duked it out (again) with the Napa County Planning Commission to a packed house, though little has changed. The meeting yielded a 3-2 approval vote, the same ruling we saw in the spring. At the urging of the Planning Commission, developer Keith Rogal went with the scaled down version that took residential units from 2,050 to between 700 and 945 units. The project will move on to the Napa County Board of Supervisors for final approval.
As if the concept of a Ritz-Carlton in Napa wasn’t bad enough, the latest Pipe Project proposal includes an added site for a Costco. While there appears to be many who are thumbs-up in favor of this addition, this scribe isn’t one of them. Not only can we school our children about the viticulture our land is famous for, we can teach them how to shop in bulk and for a bargain! A Costco in Napa? That’s one way to scare off the Ritz-Carlton crowd. Could it be time for me to accept that Napa and charming country land is no longer one in the same?
Small town reboot
Right as I’m about to lay my dreams of quaint country life to rest, St. Helena steps up to save the soul of our fair land with a rallying of the troops. In our case, this entailed a not-so-humble vie for a new Guinness World Record for the longest relay wine toast. I’m pleased to report that we conquered our mission on October 7 at Charles Krug Winery. An affair that had just the right amount of high jinx to portray small town life at its very best.
The event was two-fold in its purpose as a fund-raiser for the Kiwanis Club and a reason to rally and break the then-record of a 321 person relay toast set by Guangzhou, China, in November 2011. At the bewitching hour of 1:30 p.m., a participant pool of 487 townsfolk gathered to the “clink arena” to undergo a rigorous round of training from the “clink coach.” As if us Napans need to learn how to raise a glass for a good cause. Wine flowed, food followed and people made merriment, but this was serious business. Nobody wants to be chronicled in history as the weak link that prevents an entire township from breaking the world record, so we played hard and practiced even harder. Guinness Adjudicator Johanna Hessling, who flew in from New York, reviewed the rules (clink, sip, turn, clink, sip) and left us with these parting words: “Good luck, I’ll be watching you.” And that she did, but we didn’t buckle under the pressure. Instead, under the sheer force of town pride, we broke the world record at approximately 2:30 p.m.
Wine Wave (as the toast was called) marketing director Lowell Smith sums up our plight best: “No matter what happens, you can never take this away from us.” As I clutch my very own record-breaking medallion, I have a realization: Regardless of how many wineries crop up and how many fancy-schmancy hotels threaten to change us, one thing will forever reign—small town pride. All the expansion in the world can’t take that away, as long as we vow to never allow it.
