For Lease: Can Cotati Do More to Lure Business to Town?

Commercial vacancies are a problem for many towns in Sonoma County.

But the situation is especially dire in Cotati, where some shopping centers, such as the Grapevine, are more than half empty. That’s led some merchants to conclude that the city is not a good place to do business and that both City Hall and the Chamber of Commerce do little to spur investment.

“The city does nothing to market us and the Chamber of Commerce is just an old boys and girls club for socializing,” says Rupinder Garcha, who owns Masala Jack’s in the Grapevine Center. The Indian restaurant is one of only three remaining tenants out of ten that were open just four years ago.

“The chamber has two roles—tourism and business promotion—and they do neither,” said Garcha. “They say the economy is rebounding, but by the time the effects trickle down to us, it will be another five to ten years.”

Garcha says Grapevine tenants started leaving in 2008 when the economy tanked, but the property owner did not lower the rents, something he says the city could have helped negotiate. The property fell into foreclosure, although it's on the market and has a potential buyer.

Suzanne Whipple, executive director of the Cotati Chamber of Commerce, agrees that the role of the chamber is to promote its members, who pay $100-$400 a year, depending on their size.

“We can advocate for the business, but it’s a fine line to get involved in terms of rents,” she said. “There is no chamber I know of that gets involved in landlord-tenant issues.”

Instead, the chamber promotes merchants by listing them on its site, offering a printed directory and a map to visitors. There are also community events such as mixers and luncheons. And later this year, it will launch roundtable meetings with local businesses to find out what challenges they’re facing, Whipple said.

Next door at City Hall, Assistant City Manager Micah Hinkle says Cotati has already done a lot to streamline the application process and is considering upping the cap on “formula-based businesses" such as Jamba Juice, Subway and other national chains.

Under the city's definition, that includes any national food retailer with more than 150 locations. Currently, only eight are allowed, but many want to increase the number.

“Very often, it’s these types of stores that are the driver that can attract new businesses to a shopping center,” Hinkle said. “There are many different issues (when it comes to vacancies)…the economy, rents, the condition of the property. What we’re trying to do is take care of what we can control, which is the regulatory side of things…We want to make it so that an applicant doesn’t have to go through planning or City Council each time.”

Over at the Frog Song Shopping Center, where there are three vacancies, Bob Brooks, the owner of More Unlimited, a photocopying and shipping business, is also frustrated.

In fact, Brooks is so frustrated that he has decided to close shop at the end of April.

“Cotati just doesn’t lend itself to doing business,” he said. “People here aren’t geared into shopping locally and the chamber is extremely ineffective and has been for a long time."

Brooks wants the chamber to promote the city through magazine and radio advertising, “the way Healdsburg does.”

“If Cotati could do more things to make itself visible and appealing for other businesses to come here, like giving them tax incentives, it would go a long way,” he says.

“But it has to be a joint effort between the property owners, the chamber and the local government. All the chamber is doing is collecting money so they can pay the director’s salary. But they’re not doing anything for us. Who cares if they have a map?”

Not everyone agrees.

Craig Enyart owns the Gravenstein Business Center, located west of Highway 101 near Lowe’s, and boasts a 100 percent occupancy rate.

That wasn’t always the case.

Just five years ago, only half of the storefronts were filled, so Enyart thought hard about how to boost tenancy.

Forgoing local leasing companies, he decided to speak with his tenants himself, finding out about their situations and the challenges they were facing. That led to temporary rent abatements and loan modifications, along with cutting his own expenses on things like garbage, since there was less trash being generated.

“Our idea was to get the center full even if it meant offering free rents for a while, just to get some synergy going and it worked,” Enyart said.

Today, the shopping center has a mix of businesses, including a tub vendor, a gun shop, a screen printer and the city’s only medical marijuana dispensary.

That flexibility and foresight may be key for any property owner wanting to boost tenancy, but not everyone is as on the ball as Enyart or has similar ties to the community. Garcha, the owner of Masala Jack’s, didn’t even know the name of the owner of his shopping center, having only dealt with a property management company.

“When I asked about who they were and if I could talk to them, I was told I had to go through the property manager because that's what they were there for,” he said.

The city can’t do much to control whether a property is bought by a local or out of town investor, but it does want to attract a more diverse mix of companies and is set to vote on relaxing the ban on fast food franchises over the next couple of months.

“People want to keep Cotati as small town, but they don’t want it to become ghost town,” says Mayor Mark Landman. “And there is a balance there we need to strike.”

What do you think? Can the city do more to attract and retain businesses? Share your thoughts in the comments below.