The city of Sausalito is considering allowing the formation of a special business district. The city council gave its blessing to City Manager Chris Zapata to ink a deal with New City America Inc. to investigate the creation of the new entity.
New City is based in San Diego and has worked throughout California and in such far-flung places as Maryland and Massachusetts. In 2017 it worked in Santa Rosa, which was looking at forming a business district. It has founded more than 90 districts across the county and keeps the Li Mandri family fully employed—the founder of New City, Marco Li Mandri, is also its president; his wife Laura is the vice president and Dominic Li Mandri is district manager.
The Sausalito gig carries a $83,000 price tag and New City is on the hook for figuring out the district boundaries and forming a committee of property owners. It also needs to conduct meetings, gather information and present a report to the city.
In the end, the merchants would need to vote on the formation. The public would also get a crack at voting if the district got a preliminary thumbs up, with the special district possibly included on a ballot next year.
The special district would be funded via assessments with the district promoting tourism and use assessment proceeds to make the district look better. If that sounds familiar, that’s because those are some of the things that chamber of commerce organizations often tackle.
Since the city owns beaucoup property downtown, there is some question about how its role in the creation of any district could be balanced with the interests of other stakeholders, including how much the city would kick into the district coffers. For that matter, it’s an open question whether city properties would be included in the district.
It’s a legitimate query as to whether there’s room for a special business district in the city by the bay. After all, Sausalito has a long-established chamber of commerce as well as an Economic Development Advisory Committee, which succeeded the Business Advisory Committee and the Hospitality Business Development Committee.
Business advocacy is a tricky thing in a place like Marin, in part because of the place itself. Business execs like the late Zappos.Com CEO Tony Hsieh, Lucasfilm founder George Lucas and investor Charlie Schwab have called the county home, not to mention smaller names who steer other businesses. On the other hand, there are no smokestack industries, open space is a religion and the importance of the environment has long been a basic life value here in the land of organic dairy and free-trade honey.
A number of businesses have left over the years for locations more open to growth, often times vamoosing to Sonoma. Marin is a place given more to zoning laws that restrict rather than local government agencies looking to aid businesses. And while the locals carry shopping bags reading “Think Globally and Shop Locally,” on garbage day recycling bins overflow suspiciously with boxes of Amazon origin.
Still, Marin has a rich history of business advocacy. From Mill Valley to West Marin, chambers of commerce can be found in most locales, numbering at least 10 if my math skills are to be trusted. There is also the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, as well as the North Bay Black Chamber of Commerce.
The business of business advocacy goes beyond the chambers, however. There is the Marin Economic Forum out of San Rafael, as well as North Bay Council located in the north Marin border city of Novato. And let’s not forget the Marin Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Had enough? My cup runneth over. In San Rafael, we also find the Downtown Business Improvement District and, to the north, the Downtown Business Association in Novato.
While there’s no shortage of business advocacy organizations in Marin, that doesn’t mean it’s easy sailing for them. In May, the San Rafael Chamber agreed to step in to bail out the struggling San Rafael Downtown Business Improvement District, which continued to struggle since COVID. The DBID is responsible for putting on events like May Madness and the Hops and Vine Stroll.
It remains to be seen if the Sausalito business district moves from concept to reality. You can be sure New City America will do its best to birth another business-advocacy organization. It has a reputation to protect and 83,000 reasons to see its assignment through.
But the winds of change can blow in very unexpected ways in Sausalito, ask any sailboat captain who has navigated Racoon Strait.
Bill Meagher is contributing editor at NorthBay biz and pens this column each month. He is also a senior reporter with The Deal, a Manhattan-based financial news outlet. He covers small cap equity, SPACs, alternative investment, the SEC and does deep dive journalism. He can be reached via this magazine for news tips and legal threats.
