Community Action Partnership plans to move back to southwest Santa Rosa

With the pending sale of its building to a health care provider, Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County is looking to return to southwest Santa Rosa where it got its start decades ago.

The nonprofit organization, which offers a wide range of education and aid programs, plans to move back to the Roseland neighborhood this spring after 12 years on Dutton Avenue in northwest Santa Rosa, said Tim Reese, the executive director.

The group, founded nearly 50 years ago to provide services and support to low-income families, is selling its building for about $3.2 million to the Santa Rosa Community Health Centers, which is planning to renovate the 24,000-square-foot site and open a clinic that would offer dental, mental health and primary care medical services.

“It’s more of a building than what we need,” said Reese, who estimated selling the structure would save his agency $100,000 a year in operating costs.

Reese expects the 120 employees based at the Dutton site will move after escrow closes, likely in March. The organization is looking for a place to temporarily lease, but the ultimate goal is to raise at least $5 million in hopes of one day building a permanent headquarters at the future site of the Roseland Village off Sebastopol Road, Reese said.

The nonprofit originated in the area and operated there before it moved to the bigger site on northern side of town, he said.

“We are really going back to our roots,” said Reese, who was hired two years ago to oversee the agency, which serves nearly 9,000 people a year and has an annual budget of $10 million.

Even before Reese’s arrival, there were discussions about CAP moving into Roseland Village, said John Haig, the county’s redevelopment manager.

“They’ve always been considered a good potential for the commercial side,” Haig said. No decisions on tenants have been made, he added, and county supervisors still haven’t selected a developer for the project.

The Community Development Commission could bring forward a recommendation to county supervisors tentatively on Jan. 26, said Jim Leddy, the commission’s special projects director. He said staff picked the Foster City-based MidPen Housing, following a unanimous recommendation by a 10-member advisory scoring committee, which weighed the proposals from three developers - MidPen, Burbank Housing Corp. and EAH Housing of San Rafael.

MidPen’s proposal included building 100 market-rate apartments in addition to 70 affordable units and up to 39,600 square feet in commercial space, according to county documents. In their proposal, CAP was named as a potential nonprofit tenant.

Efren Carrillo, chairman of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, welcomed the agency’s move back to Roseland, whether or not it be in the Village project. He said CAP, which oversees various early childhood education programs throughout the county, including Pasitos, AVANCE and Head Start, already has made a “significant footprint” in the community.

“They will be enhancing their presence in a community that they already understand and have already been working with for the better part of the last few decades,” Carrillo said.

In addition to early childhood education, CAP also provides housing assistance, free dental services and small business and financial literacy classes.

The nonprofit plans to start fundraising for the headquarters within a few years.

“We are looking at building our base of community support so in five years we can do a capital campaign,” Reese said.

In the meantime, they’re looking at a few potential rental sites off Stony Point Road, Corporate Center Parkway and Sebastopol Road. They hope to make a decision by the end of the week, he said.

Marta Tilling, who oversees the Pasitos and AVANCE program as the agency’s assistant director of school readiness, called it a “homecoming.”

She said it means a lot to be right in the middle of the community. Many of the Latino families they work with live in the area, said Tilling, who voiced hope they’ll one day have space at Roseland Village for a preschool, Pasitos and AVANCE classrooms and other services.

“It means a lot to us to be right there in the middle of things,” Tilling said. “It will provide a hub. If we find needs, we’ll be able to better refer people.”

Youth Connections, one of the nonprofit’s programs that helps 16- to 24-year-olds make up credits and get their high-school diplomas, also will move into the new location.

Although some students are uneasy with change, most have expressed excitement moving to Roseland, a more convenient location for them, said Jason Carter, the program manager.

“Our student population is mainly coming from the Roseland area,” Carter said.

It’s not the first move for the growing program. It moved into the Dutton Avenue building in 2014 after it outgrew its space at the South Park Youth Center off Temple Avenue.

“We’re going to try to make it a seamless transition. We’ve done this before,” said Carter, who’s also looking to open an additional location in Sonoma Valley after launching this past fall a site in Healdsburg.

You can reach Staff Writer Eloísa Ruano González at 521-5458 or eloisa.gonzalez@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @eloisanews.