Real estate pursuits of Codding family reorganized

The family behind two of Sonoma County’s largest commercial properties - including Coddingtown Mall in Santa Rosa - on Wednesday said they finished splitting business holdings into two organizations.

Investment company SOMO Living LLC, whose largest holding is the 175-acre SOMO Village development in east Rohnert Park, is now separate from Codding Enterprises, which retains Coddingtown, Merced Mall in the Central Valley and commercial properties around them. The Coddings first discussed this transition in December as they were reacquiring full ownership of Coddingtown from Simon Property Group.

The reorganization also comes as the first construction is moving toward starting this year at SOMO Village, a former Agilent Technologies campus where 1,721 homes are planned.

Brad Baker shifted from the helm of Codding to lead SOMO Living, with ownership of it shared by Connie Codding, his mother and wife of the late Hugh Codding, a major local real estate developer. Codding Enterprises is run by granddaughters Lisa and Lois Codding, who also run Codding Construction.

“It is more of an estate-planning exercise between different family members,” Baker said.

Codding Enterprises in December bought back the 50 percent stake in Coddingtown sold to Simon Property Group in 2005. Proceeds from the original deal helped fund Codding Enterprises’s purchase of the 200-acre former Hewlett-Packard then Agilent campus on Valley House Road, setting the stage for Baker’s plan to create a large, environmentally friendly community, called Sonoma Mountain Village then SOMO Village.

The 600,000 square feet of former Agilent buildings there are 97 percent full. That’s thanks to the recent addition of Keysight Technologies in temporary space as repairs continue on its headquarters in Santa Rosa’s Fountaingrove area after the October wildfires.

Plans for the undeveloped part of SOMO Village could be finalized by this summer to a point where deals could start being struck with homebuilders to build the units, Baker said.