Sonoma Truck & Auto site back on market

Sale could spell the end of the embattled ‘Gateway Project’|
LORNA SHERIDAN
INDEX-TRIBUNE MANAGING EDITOR

The owners of 870 Broadway — the site of the former Sonoma Truck & Auto — have put the long-vacant parcel on the market, according to Scot Hunter, the broker handling the transaction for the Austin, Texas-based Sonoma Gateway Commons investment group. There is no set asking price.

“We are requesting offers by Sept. 1,” said Hunter, of Sonoma-based Paceline Advisors. “That gives interested parties a month to do their pre-offer due diligence.” The goal is to complete a sale by Oct. 15, said Hunter.

The sale is motivated ‘by the serious illness of one of selling entity partners who needs to cash out of his share of the property,’ according to the listing documents.

An investment group headed by managing partner Bill Waters, purchased the site in 2014 from the estate of Bob Bonna, owner of Sonoma Truck & Auto, for $1.9 million. The 1.86-acre property at the corner of Broadway and MacArthur had been in and out of escrow for nearly four years as a parade of developers considered projects ranging from a Walgreens or Trader Joe's, to an office complex or a high-end hotel.

The most recent plan for the property was a multi-use development, dubbed the Sonoma Gateway Project, which included 33 housing units and a 3,500-square-foot retail space. It was granted a use permit by the Sonoma Planning Commission in May 2018 and a developer was in escrow to purchase the site for $5 million.

In January 2019, a lawsuit was filed in Sonoma County Superior Court by a neighborhood group calling itself Friends of the Broadway Corridor, headed by Sonoma resident Lou Braun. The suit challenged the City of Sonoma's approval of the project without requiring environmental review under CEQA guidelines.

The suit demanded that the city void all approvals of the Sonoma Gateway project, prevent further work and preparation for the project, require an adequate Environmental Impact Review (EIR) and adopt feasible alternatives and mitigations, and pay all of Friends of the Broadway Corridor’s costs and attorney fees.

The listing describes the property as the last remaining infill site downtown - on Sonoma's main thoroughfare.

That lawsuit has not yet been determined or settled, according to Hunter. There are three options now, he said. “A new buyer could see the lawsuit through, working off of the previous City approval, or reapply to do something different.”

The listing is online on Loopnet.com.

Contact Lorna at lorna.sheridan@sonomanews.com.

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