Industrial Properties For Sale Along North Redwood Boulevard

Discussions about possible development just north of Novato’s Old Town area skidded to a halt last summer when the subject of affordable housing blew up and started to dominate every city meeting.

But that doesn’t mean efforts are stuck in neutral in the section of town called the North Redwood Boulevard Corridor. In fact, just last week two properties went up for sale at the same time right in the area that had been targeted for future development.

The old Dairymen’s Mill site, a 3.15-acre plot between Redwood Boulevard and the train tracks, is for sale now and the asking price is $3 million, said senior vice president/partner Steve Leonard of Cassidy Turley/BT Commercial Real Estate in San Rafael. The mill at 7546 Redwood Blvd. is about 45,000 square feet, and occupies the portion that faces Redwood Blvd.

Just north of that, the Shamrock Materials cement plant at 7572 Redwood Blvd. is up for grabs as well. Between the two sites is the at 7576 Redwood Blvd., which is a privately owned lot leased out to Novato Disposal.

Altogether, if the recycling center were included, the land would be just more than five acres and could be attractive for a development company looking for a large piece of land near Old Town.

The Novato Recycling Center property is owned by people who waiting to see what happens, said commercial real estate broker John Williams of Sperry Van Ness. His clients — who would rather not be named publicly, he said — were represented at recent meeting between Shamrock, Dairymen’s and city officials to talk about possible development.

“The long and short of it is that there’s a good chance that if something happened with the two other parcels they might be willing to be part of it,” Williams said. “They couldn’t be nicer people. They have given me the go-ahead to work on finding out if there is value for them there.”

All three properties are zoned for commercial/industrial use, according to Novato Redevelopment Agency Director Ron Gerber. When asked if the zoning could be changed to general commercial or mixed use to allow for some housing, he said, “that depends.”

“That’s where the community discussion comes in,” he said. “It depends what the community would allow there. What would work in the marketplace in today’s economy? What is the market demand right now? What is economically feasible? The answers to those questions always have an impact on land use decisions.”

Leonard said there are about 40 shareholders on the Dairymen’s site, all relatives of the original farmers who owned the co-op mill. Bob Lipman of Coldwell Banker said Shamrock, his client, has not decided on a sale price. Shamrock has several plants, including ones in Petaluma and San Rafael, and doesn’t really need the Novato one anymore, he said.

Right now, the three properties qualify visually as run down in a downtown area that is looking to bolster its retail appeal, nightlife and its ability to offer things the city’s residents want and need. For the most part, city officials are pleased to hear that the plots are for sale.

City Councilwoman Jeanne MacLeamy noted that the future of Gerber’s Novato Redevelopment Agency is in jeopardy as Gov. Jerry Brown works to woo the Legislature to get rid of 425 municipal redevelopment agencies statewide to help balance the budget.

“With the uncertainty of future redevelopment dollars, it’s unlikely that that city will be able to participate, so the next alternative is for private business to take the lead and ideally amass property so that there can be some unified and well-planned development,” MacLeamy said. “So that could be a really positive sign with those all for sale at the same time. I think that’s a great development opportunity if there is someone out there who would like to move forward.”

Dave Wallace, the city’s community development director, added, “I think it’s a good thing. It opens up the greater possibility that something will happen with those properties. … There’s going to be a lot of discussion that needs to take place.”

Councilwoman Carole Dillon-Knutson said she had to drive to Corte Madera on Monday to get some basic sewing supplies because she couldn’t find what she needed in Novato. She said residents need to be enticed to spending their dollars within the city limits as long as they can find what they want.

“Only five percent of our land is zoned for commercial, and San Rafael is 11 percent,” she said. “So that’s why our tax revenue base is slow low compared to other towns. … They’ve been talking about filling in that area for a long time. I think it’s an opportunity to reuse those properties to the benefit of the residents of Novato.”

The city is in the midst of updating its general plan, a long-range forecast required by state law. A volunteer steering committee was discussing the North Redwood Boulevard Corridor as part of the plan update when another facet of the plan, the housing element, bubbled to the surface when the minimum mandated quotas for affordable housing rankled many residents. For about eight months, discussions about high-density, low-income housing units and the possible rezoning of property throughout the city to make room for such complexes — even if they’re never built — has trumped all the previous talk about business development just north of Old Town.

MacLeamy said she hopes an ad hoc working group that is looking into the affordable housing predicament could shift its attention to the North Redwood Boulevard Corridor plan after properties are recommended to the City Council for housing rezoning.

“Until we get the housing settled, we really can’t move forward on the zoning of these three properties,” she said. “Ideally time is of the essence and it would be nice to be able to move expeditiously on everything at once, but we have to take it one step at a time. But this is the perfect opportunity, without the assistance of the redevelopment agency, for new potential property owners to make a proposal. It could all fall together beautifully.”

Williams agreed, adding, “It’s kind of serendipitous.”