Beer Garden and more to come at First Street in Napa | Local News

For comparison, Holcomb and fellow partner Joe Rossi are also redeveloping the Food City Mall, located about a mile down the 1800 block of Old Sonoma Road.

Rental rates for the Food City project will be in the range of $ 3.50 per square foot, Holcomb said.

Are the two projects in competition?

Not really, said Holcomb.

They are very different, he says. “The tenants we talk to at 1500 First St., they want to be close to the downtown action.

Tenants in Food City, which includes a market, cafe, fitness studio, taqueria and barber shop, “don’t necessarily want to be downtown,” Holcomb said. “They want the convenience of parking and the traditional neighborhood mall.”

Holcomb acknowledged that the impact of COVID-19 restrictions and rising costs of construction and materials such as lumber affected the project on First Street.

“It got more expensive than our original pro-forma… but we’re still driving.”

After initially purchasing varying percentages of ownership of the building, Holcomb and the investors finalized their purchase of the property from Napa Valley Development Corporation in 2019. In total, the Exertec building sold for $ 7 million.