Slow-moving Mattson projects irk Springs MAC

Springs Municipal Advisory Council member Hannah Perot noticed the high number of people who tuned in to watch Tuesday night’s meeting and wished they could all be this well attended, not just when the projects of Sonoma Valley developers Ken and Stacy Mattson are on the agenda.

The slow pace of their Boyes Hot Springs projects was a point of concern for the council.

“We've been sitting here for years,” Avram Goldman, a Spring MAC council member said. “And things kind of get started a little bit and then they don't go any further.”

Daniel Crowley, the project manager for the Mattsons’ projects in Boyes Hot Springs, acknowledged the frustration in his opening statements. Their developments include the Lanning building, a proposed mixed-use building; the old Church Mouse thrift store at 22 Boyes Blvd., a conceived community center; and the Boyes Food Center, a grocery center on Highway 12.

“All of these properties have been moving forward in their very different stages...,” Crowley said. “The Lanning site, which I know is on people's minds, given that it's been vacant for some time.”

The Mattsons purchased the site in 2015 and were expected to use shipping containers to renovate the building in quick fashion. This June, Crowley said the shipping containers were ready and that his team was just waiting for the building permits. On Tuesday, Crowley said permits to drop off the shipping containers for the Lanning project were going to be submitted soon.

“We're getting very close to being resubmitted towards the end of next week... I'd love to give a specific timeline, but there's a lot of variables still in play.”

Crowley said the shipping containers were “approved and inspected by the state” and are under construction offsite. The team was only waiting for a permit from the county to drop off the shipping containers.

The council was not sold by Crowley’s message as many residents expressed frustrations at the slow process, particularly because the shipping containers were supposed to expedite the construction process.

“There are all these projects all around that Mattson is doing and they're half baked or we've got drawings, and still, nothing is there,” said Goldman. “People are getting restless. They really want to see something.”

Crowley also presented renderings for the redesign of the former Church Mouse thrift shop at 18068 Sonoma Highway. He said county planners had “really positive input” after receiving the renderings for the design before the Mattsons planned to resubmit those plans to the county’s design review committee. But a resubmission has not yet occurred.

“Ideally, it'd be the end of December,” Crowley said, “but with the holidays coming up, realistically, I think we're going to anticipate something sometime early in January.”

Crowley said that the public should remain patient because existing residents on that site make the planning process more belabored. The project is seeking to avoid the displacement of residents during construction, so only a handful of residents will be moved at a time, causing the construction process to bottleneck.

Both the council and the public expressed worry that current residents there would be gentrified out of their homes by housing costs imposed on residents when the renovation is complete, but Crowley assured the council that a deal had been made to keep those residents on the property.

The final project that Crowley presented was at the old Church Mouse thrift store at 22 Boyes Blvd. purchased in December 2020. The Mattsons hope to turn the building into a community space that would benefit local businesses and residents. Commercial vendors would exist in the property, but it’s what’s happening off the property that is more significant.

Crowley said he’s spoken with the county to remake the parking lot surrounding the property into a “plaza for Boyes Hot Springs.” The project calls for an underground parking garage, above which would be the plaza center.

“We issued an unsolicited proposal a couple of months ago and the county has been a really good partner on this,” Crowley said. “They've been working with the Board of Supervisors to get approved on how to work and move forward with us on the development agreement there.”

The Board of Supervisors approved the proposal, Crowley said, and he expects further communication in coming days. But that project is “still very preliminary.”

One resident felt that building a community center near the property was disingenuous, as the ongoing construction in the area has disrupted the community feel.

“I'd like to let you know that that was a community center a long time ago... and we have lost it,” said resident Iris Lombard. “It's been ugly ever since.”

Crowley reiterated that the holdup for these projects would soon be over, allowing more building to take place.

“You're going to be seeing a lot more movement out there soon,” Crowley said. “It's bureaucratic, the wheels are turning out there.”

Still, council members and the public questioned why there weren’t better results on the three properties discussed, considering how much time has passed.

“People are very concerned about the pace of these projects when (the Mattsons) have purchased so much of our our area,” Council member Perot said. The question is: “Are they ever going to finish it?”

The Springs MAC, an organization that advises the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on the Springs community’s needs, also heard on Tuesday about a COVID-19 vaccine update, an amended quality of life report called Portrait of Sonoma, and an update to the Sonoma Developmental Center’s planning process.

Contact Chase Hunter at chase.hunter@sonomanews.com and follow @Chase_HunterB on Twitter.