Lake Berryessa Resorts | Napa County
In December 2016, the County of Napa hired Grant and his partner, Richard Ragatz to study the feasibility of taking over the management of five troubled resort concessions on Lake Berryessa. The lake was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Berryessa is a large lake, some 23 miles in length and 3.5 miles across, with a shoreline of approximately 160 miles . The USBR designated seven concession areas. Five of which are located along the western shore, encompassing almost 750 acres and 12 miles of lake frontage. These had been awarded to concessionaires for hospitality and recreational use but, after 50 years, had fallen into disrepair. Our initial assignment was to prepare an exhaustive market analysis that identified strong support for a redevelopment. Next, we drafted a Request for Information and Interest (RFII) and circulated it widely among developers, operators, investors, and consultants in the resort industry who specialized in hotels, conference centers, RV parks, marinas, campgrounds, and recreational attractions. A total of nine entities responded, indicating a degree of interest in the potential offering.
Before negotiating a Master Partnership Agreement with the federal government, the County asked us to prepare a detailed fiscal impact study to estimate revenues that might be expected from a combination of concession fees, transient occupancy taxes, incremental sales tax collections, and payments in lieu of property taxes (PILOTs). The County spent several months negotiating with the USBR, finalizing the takeover agreement in June 2020. Grant was then authorized to draft and circulate a comprehensive Request for Proposals (RFP) for three sites; the requests were issued in late November. By early March of 2021, the County was pleased to receive a total of six proposals from very well-qualified development teams. This was achieved despite Covid-19 and one of the worst wildfires in California history, which destroyed many of the mature trees on the three concession sites. Detailed planning is ongoing at three of the properties.
Fairmont Hotel | San Jose
Grant has negotiated other public/private partnerships, including those for both the Fairmont Hotel and 50 West San Fernando (with the Redevelopment Agency of San Jose); 711 Van Ness Avenue (with the Redevelopment Agency of San Francisco); and Walnut Creek Town Center (with the Walnut Creek Redevelopment Agency). The latter was never built.