Some leaks are larger than others—just ask the Obama administration. The powers that be in Novato have spotted one that’s worth a whopping $169 million, and they’re looking for a way to keep those retail dollars from flowing beyond the city limit. And the city is willing to spend a couple bucks on the repair.
Hence the $49,000 “Shop Local Novato” campaign, an effort by the city, the Novato Chamber of Commerce and the Novato Downtown Business Association to capture the $2.5 million sales tax that other Marin cities collect thanks to purchases made by Novotoans.
With the idea of keeping both shoppers and their dollars home, the campaign did the right thing by hiring locally to get the work done, throwing the ShopLocalNovato.com work at Kiosk, a Novato marketing firm. The site urges locals to remember that buying local helps keep jobs intact, creates new ones, keeps cars off the road and helps pays for local services. Besides the website, signs and banners are out reminding residents to spend their time and cash with local merchants.
One thing that has yet to translate from the city’s effort to put a headlock on local consumers is that successful retail locations tend to draw a larger variety of retailers to town, giving shoppers a better mix and creating more desirable areas in which to shop and dine.
A local example of this is downtown San Rafael, which was left for dead when Macy’s moved out a few years back. I caught hell from city fathers and moms for writing that you could fire a cannon down Fourth Street and not endanger life—though it was true. But after a significant effort to bring housing downtown and keep the sidewalks from rolling up at night, traffic downtown is kind of a nightmare, causing one city leader to recently smile at me and say, “Nice problem to have, huh?”
Novato’s business concerns don’t end with retail dollars. The Novato City Council passed a 45-day moratorium on building in the Redwood Boulevard corridor, though the moratorium could stretch out to two years. The council is looking at a plan regarding what to do with the area stretching from Olive Avenue on the south end to San Marin Drive on the north with Redwood Boulevard to the west and Highway 101 on the east, the last large chunks of Novato that lay undeveloped. The city is hopeful the moratorium will give the public a chance to weigh in and avoid the hue and cry that followed the construction of Whole Foods Market and the condo and townhomes downtown, when residents were apparently shocked that the story poles that were erected actually represented the scale of the buildings that were to be built.
There’s a pair of plans for retail expansion in the area, with both before the Design Review Commission. One by San Diego developer ROIC calls for three new commercial buildings adjacent to the Trader Joe’s strip complex it already owns. And Oppidan Investment Group out of Minnetonka, Minn., would like to build a grocery store to the north of ROIC’s property.
Oppidan bills itself as “Builder of Towns. Creator of Value” on its website and boasts that it’s developed more than 300 projects worth $1.5 billion across 26 states. Its current property portfolio carries a value of $400 million, though it has nothing in California. ROIC is West Coast-centric, with 50 properties in California, Oregon and Washington.
It might be football season, but all I see is sales tax
The city of San Rafael was first out of the gate when it came to getting a sales tax on the ballot. The city council voted to place a sales tax measure on the November ballot since Measure S, a half-cent sales tax increase passed in 2005, was set to expire.
The new tax will also add a quarter cent sales tax for 20 years, letting the city sell long-term bonds against the sales tax revenue should the voters give it a nod. The city projects the increased sales tax will bring in about $10.5 million per year to the general fund and help pay for public safety.
If the measure passes, it will take effect in April 2014.
The city spent about $100,000 on opinion polls to find out if residents would pass a sales tax measure and, according to the polls, it has support.
San Rafael isn’t the only city in Marin County considering such a measure. San Anselmo and Larkspur are also considering whether to ask voters to pass measures that would add cash to their coffers.
Like a phoenix…
Gary Friedman is back in the saddle as chairman and co-CEO at Restoration Hardware, after he resigned in September 2012 following an internal inquiry into his relationship with a 26-year-old Resto employee. Friedman stepped down after the company hired a law firm to do a formal investigation and the woman in question left the company as well.
His departure came at a crucial time for the upscale purveyor of oversized luxury furniture as the company was prepping for its IPO, which, as things turned out, wasn’t ready for prime time until November 2012 when it raised $143 million.
While Friedman was absent from the executive suite, he held down a spot as chairman emeritus. He’s now set to roll out a new brand of upscale clothing and jewelry called RH Atelier in addition to sharing CEO duties with Carlos Alberini.
One exec told me when Friedman took himself out of the game last year that the relationship was an open secret in the halls of Resto and that it was completely consensual. “He didn’t actually do anything wrong, but the timing was an issue for sure.”
