Can new hotels and two-way streets save Sebastopol businesses?

At a mixer for local business owners, the Barlow’s Barney Aldridge made his case for another new hotel and two-way streets in downtown

Barney Aldridge, owner of the Barlow, discusses the economic advantages of adding 160 hotel rooms to downtown Sebastopol. (Photo by Ambrosia Thomson)

On Thursday, March 16, the Chamber of Commerce and the Barlow hosted a mixer for local business owners and local movers and shakers to discuss increasing vibrancy in Sebastopol. The invitation-only event was held in the Barlow event center, with food and wine from Blue Ridge Kitchen.

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Note of Conflict of Interest: In addition to being the co-publisher of the Sebastopol Times, the author of this piece is also a part-time contractor for the city of Sebastopol in a role relating to economic development, an issue discussed in this article. The news reported in this article, and any opinions reflected therein, are not dictated by or reflective of the opinions of the city council or staff of the city of Sebastopol.

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Chamber director Myriah Volk and Sebastopol Downtown Association president Michael Carnacchi both spoke briefly at the beginning of the evening, striking a note of unity. But ultimately, the stage belonged to Barney Aldridge, the owner of the Barlow, who made a case for increasing the number of hotel rooms  in town and turning Main Street into a two-way street again.

“I think that it's a good time now, not only here, but for our country, to try to find common ground and create a vision of what we could be, as opposed to accidentally falling, stumbling into what we are,” he said.

Looking around the room, he said, “Step one is, now we have a group—I don't know exactly who's here but somebody does—and if we can all agree on something—one thing—then we could work together to get it done.”

“There’s no way we’ll all agree on everything, but if we can agree on something, one thing—and I hope, two things—we can work together to be a voice to the city council, to the planning commission, a voice to the county and so on, a voice to Caltrans.”

“You know, we need the government to do a couple of key things here. I don't know that the government is going to listen to me or to you but if we all agree and talk together, they might listen and help us.”

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Opening Sebastopol to tourism

Aldridge began his argument by encouraging Sebastopol to be more outward looking.

“Sebastopol is not inclusive. I would say it's exclusive - we don't really welcome people from outside,” he said, suggesting this was both attitudinal and structural—with streets designed to move people through town rather than inviting them in.

He characterized the state of most businesses in Sebastopol this way:

“This town has a lot of businesses that seem to have a lot of owners working really hard and barely making it…Sometimes they have a good month and they then have a challenging month and then a setback. They love Sebastopol. They love being part of the community, but it's generally harder than it needs to be here.”

“I don’t want to say, they’re struggling…” he said, but that was clearly what he meant. And he wasn’t wrong—as several comments from local business owners attested.

From there, he built a case for building more hotels.

“For a town of this size to just have one hotel is not healthy, not even for that hotel. That hotel needs a couple of friends, and the downtown needs hotel rooms in order to create walkability,” he said.

Right now, Sebastopol currently has only one hotel: the Fairmont Inn and Suites at the south end of town. If all goes according to plan, that should be joined in the next few years by Hotel Sebastopol, which is slated to start construction in the vacant lot across from the plaza this spring.

Aldridge would like to build a hotel in the Barlow, and this meeting was his first public announcement of that fact.

Aldridge then showed slides of a study he’d  commissioned from RRC, a marketing research firm in Colorado, that looked at how much money hotel development could bring to Sebastopol.

The first slide in Aldridge’s presentation looked at how much various cities were getting from their hotel tax (called a TOT or transient occupancy tax).

Comparison of how much several Sonoma County cities make in hotel taxes. (From a Barlow handout from its RCC report)

“What stands out here for me is that the entire county generates $75 million a year in taxes from hotel room sales—TOT taxes. And this is a tax that really stays with the towns. So Sebastopol is only getting $574,000 a year out of $75 million,” Aldridge said.

That’s the second lowest of all the incorporated towns in Sonoma County, trailed only by Cloverdale.

“And it's not because tourists don't come. They're coming here,” Aldridge said. “They're having a meal here and then they have to leave because there's nowhere for them to stay to have a second meal or shop in the stores...So this is a great opportunity.”

Aldridge then pointed out how much the city could earn in local taxes if the city would permit just 160 more hotel rooms in downtown.  (Aldridge counted the 66 rooms already permitted for Hotel Sebastopol in this number.) 

Tax impacts to Sebastopol from an additional 160 hotel rooms downtown (From a Barlow handout from its RCC report)

“Right now, Sebastopol only brings in $11 million a year in taxes to pay for our police and our fire and all that, but we're only bringing half a million dollars from hotel rooms…The city council is always struggling to make ends meet and everything is run on a shoestring.”

That picture could change significantly with the addition of 160 hotel rooms, he said.

“If you add up the TOT tax, the sales tax, and the property taxes of Sebastopol, it's three and a half million new dollars to the city of Sebastopol’s budget,” he said, noting that that would increase the city of Sebastopol’s revenues from $11 million a year to $14 million a year.  “This would solve a lot of the problems that the council and the city manager face,” he said.

Economic impact to Sebastopol of an additional 160 hotel rooms downtown. (From a Barlow handout from its RCC report)

“I don’t want Sebastopol to be Healdsburg. I like Sebastopol. I like its charm and character,” he said, pointing out that $2.5 million in TOT taxes is a far cry from the $11 million in TOT taxes that Healdsburg hauls in every year.

The RCC report also estimated the direct financial impacts of 160 additional hotel rooms to other local businesses, like restaurants and stores.

“When someone comes and stays here downtown in a hotel room, they go out for dinner. They wake up the next day; they go out for lunch; they buy things. They spend, according to this report, an extra $1.4 million a month of sales in downtown businesses,” Aldridge said. “That's $50,000 a day of new money. So that's basically like me with a briefcase of cash walking around to the downtown businesses and spending $50,000 a day, which would definitely make things a little easier for small businesses in this area.”

“So my first idea is let's do all we can as a group to help 160 hotel rooms get built here,” he said.

Alridge gestured at the table where Paolo and Circe Sher, the owners of Piazza Hospitality, sat next to members of the Lok family, owners of Fairfield Inn & Suites.

“And we have hoteliers here at the table. They [the Shers] are about to start, so we're well on our way. They’re going to build more than a third of what I think we need downtown. And then we'll try to attract another hotelier and do another hotel here, and then let's stop and let's see how we like life here, welcoming people from the outside.”

Aldridge also spoke briefly about the idea of turning Main Street back into a two-way street.

He also took several shots at Sebastopol’s Planning Director Kari Svanstrom, accusing her of being anti-development and expressing his hope that a new city manager—who the city will be hiring in the next few months—would take a different tac.  

At the mixer to discuss increasing vibrancy in Sebastopol held last week in the Barlow. (Photo by Ambrosia Thomson)

Applause and questions

Aldridge’s plans got a lot of applause from the local business owners in the crowd.

Paul Frick of Bloom, a group created to reenvision downtown, seconded the call for two-way streets and mentioned that the Caltrans Planning Grant, for which the city has just applied, might make some headway in that direction.

Wayne Britton, the owner of Hippizzazz Pizza, suggested beautifying the downtown with hanging baskets, a la Port Angeles, WA, while Bronwen Shears of the Sebastopol Cookie Company wondered who had permitted a third Starbucks in Sebastopol (meaning the one currently being built in the Redwood Shopping Center at the north end of town).

There were a few challenging comments. Linda Herman wanted to know why no one had mentioned additional housing as a way to increase vibrancy. She said she was a bit taken aback that a meeting billed as “Increasing Vibrancy in Sebastopol” had turned into hotel development discussion, as if that was the only answer.

“Frankly, I resent the chamber being used that way,” she said later. “It was billed as a panel discussion to talk about how to revitalize downtown, not as ‘Oh, Barney wants to build a hotel.’ I just don't like the lack of transparency.”

Seemingly rankled at the many hits directed at Sebastopol’s city government, Mayor Neysa Hinton stood up and said that the city had spent $500,000 in the last several years on economic development efforts. (Author’s note: This includes $136,000 on Relaunch Sebastopol, $26,000 of which went to this author in 2022.) She said that city officials were not unaware of the economic challenges facing the town. She also noted that the people had voted to turn Main Street into a one-way street, and that if supporters of two-way streets wanted to change that, they could take it to the voters.

After the meeting, Chamber Director Myriah Volk said, “It was wonderful to see our community come together to make progress in moving Sebastopol forward. The collaboration between the Chamber, the Downtown Association, and the Barlow is vital for our business community to achieve success. Based on the feedback from the people present at the event, there's a desire for more gatherings like this in the future.”

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