Petaluma, Sonoma-Marin Fair officials plan future of fairgrounds property

The fair’s 50-year lease on 64 acres of prime Petaluma real estate will expire in 2023.|

Point Reyes native Erin Post grew up showing prize-winning cows at the Sonoma-Marin Fair, the down-home event and organization where the 29-year-old became CEO in March.

When the dust settles on the fair’s 2016 edition this month, Post said she’ll be seizing the bridle of her next challenge - the ongoing negotiations over the future of the fairgrounds itself.

City and fair officials remain quiet on the specifics of confidential negotiations over the future of the fair’s $1-per-year lease of the city-owned property, a 64-acre site on the outskirts of Petaluma’s downtown. The fair has operated on those terms since 1936, with a current, 50-year lease ending in 2023.

Redevelopment of the centrally located site could mean a boost for the city’s coffers, notably at a time when the city is staring down the possibility of future budgetary shortfalls. Yet changes to the lease could also mean big shifts to an agriculturally rooted tradition that has endured nearly a century of change in the surrounding city.

Just as the Sonoma-Marin Fair has long been an annual tradition in Petaluma, so too, in recent years, has been the speculation over its future.

“We want to preserve recreation” said Petaluma Mayor David Glass, yet “the city, frankly, has an imperative in terms of its financial needs.”

Closed-session talks over the fair’s current lease have become a regular fixture on the agenda of the Petaluma City Council, including six scheduled sessions in 2015. Wrapping up the negotiations is among the council’s official goals and priorities for 2016.

Post said she’s had a handful of talks with city representatives since coming on board as CEO three months ago, but much of her attention during that time has been on the run-up to the fair itself. The one-week event, a celebration of all things fauna, flora, Ferris wheel and funnel cake, kicks off on June 22.

Speaking generally of the negotiations, she said she viewed the city as a partner.

“As of now, we’re working kind of hand-in-hand with the city to find a resolution for this property, and for the fair in Petaluma,” she said.

Perhaps the most high-profile idea to emerge in recent years was the proposal by New York investor Merritt Paulson in 2006 to build a minor league baseball stadium at the site of the current racetrack.

The deal would have included a 65-year extension of the current lease.

The proposal collapsed within two months, reportedly after Paulson refused to provide a financial backstop to potential losses by Sonoma-Marin Fair. Paulson was reported to have offered to share some profits from the $20 million stadium with the organization, but fair officials at that time said the deal was still too risky for their narrow-margin operation.

Having personally worked to facilitate the proposal following the outreach of Paulson, Mayor Glass lamented the collapse of the deal 10 years ago.

Paulson later went on to develop a major league soccer stadium in Portland, Ore., where he serves as owner and CEO of the Portland Timbers.

“I worked hard and presented them with what I thought as a golden opportunity, and they missed grabbing the brass ring,” he said.

Meanwhile, as the nuances of the current negotiations between the city and the fair remain confidential, others in Petaluma have continued to contemplate the future of the fairgrounds property.

As head of a regular gathering of urban planning professionals, enthusiasts and thinkers known as Petaluma Urban Chat, civil engineer Dave Alden said he launched an effort through the group around one year ago to “put pencil to paper” in developing a serious third-party consideration of potential redevelopment of the fairgrounds site.

The group assumed that the city would be looking to benefit from the economic windfall of new development at the location, envisioning a mix of housing, parkland and elements such as a performing arts center, he said. The fairgrounds would continue on the property, though would occupy a smaller 20-acre footprint.

The group also planned to raise funding to develop renderings of their ideas, though Alden said those efforts were paused due to a current lack of avenues for formal public input on future fairgrounds development. Yet he laid out the stakes at play for the centrally-located, lightly-developed site.

“It’s truly a game changer for Petaluma,” he said. “If they can find a way to develop a good urban footprint grid within that site, particularly one that is not car-dependent, it could change the nature of the town 100 years from now.”

Dominic Grossi, president of the fair’s board of directors, lauded the event and its history in Petaluma. While Grossi, a Novato resident, said he’d like to see the fair and related venue continue as is, he was quick to sympathize with the city for the opportunity it might see in redevelopment at the site.

“It’s an extremely important part of the community, not only during the five days of the fair, but also the rest of the year, because of all of the events that happen there,” he said, yet, “I fully recognize the city’s desire to further utilize this property.”

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