Novato Advance
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Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Prado Group properties key to city redevelopment vision
By Paul Jones
One of the most influential men in Novato doesn’t actually live in Novato. Dan Safier, President of the Prado Group, a San Francisco-based developer, gained attention when his company brought Trader Joe’s to Novato. But Safier’s Prado, which owns several strategically significant local properties, is well positioned to strongly influence current plans for development throughout the city.
“He’s a significant property owner by virtue of four parcels,” said Dan Keen, city manager for Novato.
Safier owns the empty former Pini Hardware building on Grant Avenue, “He owns a nice piece of land next to the Atherton Ranch development, and very soon, you’ll hear (about) a proposal by the city to purchase his Diablo Avenue property for affordable housing,” Keen said.
Safier’s fourth major property, the Village at Novato and adjacent land, is along east Redwood Boulevard, and is especially important, due to the city’s plans to commercially redevelop the area currently occupied by entities such as the North Marin Water District and Dairyman’s Milling Company. The city has envisioned bringing in stores such as Kohl’s, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Pottery Barn, Coldwater Creek, and California Pizza Kitchen, among others.
“He’s critical,” said Ron Gerber, Redevelopment Administrator for Novato. “He’s key to the success of the area. His company controls about 8 acres, so he’s the largest private landowner. He owns 3.75 acres across the street, so just under 12 acres in North Redwood.”
Safier said that he and the city had a strong relationship, and complimented Keen on “developing tools” to bring projects “clearly and efficiently from start to finish.” With the city’s approval process and regulations a common complaint amongst developers and small businesses alike, Safier said Novato needed to move projects faster, or risk losing developer interest.
“When the governmental process is slow … development projects cost more,” he said. “The private sector will seek out alternative cities that have a reputation for successful public/private collaboration.”
While such language may raise the hackles of citizens concerned about accelerated development, Safier said his experience with community representatives had been good, specifically in securing Trader Joe’s as a tenant.
“We received extremely strong support for the project and had a very linear path through the approvals,” said Safier. “We had very strong community support emanating in large part from the Novato Healthy Food Coalition, which is an off-shoot of the Novato Mothers Club.
Safier said building relationships with the community was a key strategy of his company, and noted that Prado also sought to develop projects that furthered the city’s growth goals.
“He’s helping the city by making good faith efforts to get complimentary tenants,” said Gerber. “Lots of tenants would love to move into (his) space, and he’s been judicious in trying to take in the right types.”
If the city depends on Safier to forward its development strategy, Safier also depends upon the city to approve his projects. His latest is the expansion of the Village at Novato.
“The Village at Novato is part of a mixed-use district that we are helping to create in the northern gateway to downtown, which includes our Atherton Place project on the west side of the Redwood Boulevard, directly across the street from the Village,” said Safier. “The first phase of the Village at Novato project has been extremely successful … The second phase of the Village at Novato is scheduled to start construction in 2008 with completion and occupancy in early 2009. We are currently negotiating with tenants for that phase.”
Safier talked about the development of the Atherton Ranch property into “Atherton Place.” Prado has applied for the city to amend current zoning to allow “59 townhouse units and approximately 5,000 feet of retail/live-work space,” he said.
Safier said he envisioned a “small scale, village oriented, walkable project” at the Atherton Ranch property, bringing housing and jobs close together in the area.
Safier’s Grant Avenue project, the historic Pini Hardware building at 1107 Grant, is also an important project for the company. Vacant since 2004, Safier said tenants had still not been signed, but that the company was moving to rehabilitate the building.
“(It) will include upgrade work to the façade, landscape, hardscape, and building interior,” said Safier. “Although we have received some offers to lease the building, by both single tenants and multiple tenants, we haven’t yet landed tenants we believe to be the best fit.”
Among Safier’s personal interests in Novato is landing a bookstore in the city. The last successful commercial bookseller, Crown Books, went out of business when its parent company crashed. With used bookshop Odyssey going out of business, Novatans will soon have no alternative but to get on Highway 101 to buy new releases. Safier said last year he’d contemplated renovating the Novato train depot to accommodate a bookshop, possibly a Book Passage location, but there has been little movement since.
“We have been diligently pursuing various bookstores since 2002,” said Safier. “(We) are in discussions with at least five different book stores.”
Safier said the combination of the historically low-profit nature of the bookstore industry, and the recent Internet price wars had made opening new locations difficult in many cities.
However, “we are optimistic about the future prospects for a bookstore in Novato,” he said. “Since Novato had the number one Crown Books store in the chain, that experiment essentially proved that locating in Novato is smart business.”
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