Nimitz closes deal for 500 acres
Mayor: ‘This is our future’
Dave Phinney made the big money selling off wine brands. And his current endeavor at Savage & Cooke is all about spirits like bourbon and whiskey.
But it was champagne corks that were popping at the The Nimitz Group last Friday when the small team of investors closed on the acquisition of 500 acres of land on Mare Island, another step of turning real estate once owned by Lennar into the vision of Phinney and his colleagues.
Phinney believes the latest news “builds on the tremendous progress to date and continue to revitalize this community and make it stronger both for our current neighbors work here and for future generations that will call Mare Island home.”
The land acquisition will “hopefully start something great,” Phinney said by phone.
“It means a lot to the city of Vallejo and its residents. This is something we’ve been looking forward to for a lot of years,” said
Vallejo Mayor Bob Sampayan. “We’ve had a lot of false starts and this one has proven to be not a false start. I see a lot of exciting things coming to us because of who The Nimitz Group is. This is going to be economic development. This is going to be jobs. This is going to be our future. I’m very excited.”
The key to the island’s success is to not build a “mono-culture,” said Phinney, but a diverse mix of complementary businesses and ventures, which is why he rejected one well-known golf course developer in resurrecting the closed Mare Island Golf Course.
Though there would have been a shot at bringing a “major tournament” to Mare Island, “every last inch of the course” would have been required creating that “mono-culture on this part of the island,” Phinney said.
Before the course was shuttled six months ago, it was costing $200,000 a month and “bleeding money,” Phinney said. “Does this economically make sense?”
Phinney wouldn’t rule out possibly turning the 18hole course to 9-holes or relocating it to another part of the island.
“It’s in the hopper with everything else as we try to figure out the best use,” Phinney said.
The 46-year-old entrepreneur was driving up from San Luis Obispo on Monday and said that taking on the challenges of Mare Island step-by-step is “part of the long-term approach. It’s a natural progression starting with the Historic Core. There’s a 20-if-not-50 year approach to this. Rarely do you get a chance to do something like this starting from scratch … developing an ethos of a community while still maintaining the DNA of Vallejo and doing it very much in concert with what’s going on in Vallejo.”
Though The Nimitz Group’s jurisdiction is Mare Island, it’s part of the bigger Vallejo puzzle, said Phinney, cognizant of what happens “over the causeway.”
“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” he said. “It’s not just about Mare Island, but Vallejo.”
Including the golf course, Phinney said The Nimitz Group now controls about 1,000 acres of what can be developed. Certain buildings remain in city or federal government control, including the Veterans Administration clinic, the National Guard, and the U.S. Forest Service.
Yes, about two and half years in, Phinney said patience is tested.
“Between the Navy, Lennar, the city … and everybody’s cooperating,” Phinney said. “Imagine what it would be like if there was no cooperation? Just thousands and thousands of pages of paper to deal with government bodies. Complicated deals, but extremely interesting and, frustrating.”
It was “all about understanding what we were getting into and accepting it,” Phinney said. “Having that ‘come to Jesus’ moment with ourselves. The more we learned, the more comfortable we got.”
Phinney even — gulp — accepts paying “10 times the cost of what we thought it would be” in order to accomplish the due diligence of the project.
“I joke that when I got into the wine business, by the time I figured out what a dumb idea it was, I was already in too deep,” Phinney said. “What makes this possible is that in our group there’s a high level of risk tolerance, but we’re not going to be irresponsible.”
Even when the group is spending more money than it forecast, “we’re just adding value to the property and ‘de-risking’ it for others,” Phinney said.
While the city may have been a dreamer when it came to pursuing Amazon’s highly-publicized second site for a possible Mare Island location, Phinney said it was a worthy dream. Amazon selected New York City and Arlington, Virginia, as the location its new headquarters, expecting to invest $5 billion and creating more than 50,000 jobs.
“It’s like when you go to graduate college and go on interviews when you know you’re not going to get the job. It’s the experience,” Phinney said. “I’m the eternal optimist, much to the chagrin of many I work
at times,
with. Maybe to a fault. Anything’s possible.”
What definitely is possible on Mare Island, he said, is a sustainable plan, “not just environmentally, but economically. We’re cautious about letting any one company or institution have too large of a footprint or influence on the island.”
The son of professors, grandson of an archaeologist and a fifth generation Californian, Phinney said whatever The Nimitz Group decides, transparency is pivotal.
“I don’t want to start talking about things and not follow through. That’s the easiest way to lose a community,” Phinney said. “And it’s not how I was raised. When you say you’re going to do something, you do it.”
Those exquisite buildings that include the commandants’ residences? Beautiful buildings “that I fell in love with,” Phinney said. “And now I have the keys.”
Buildings first and, he hoped, keys to the community’s heart.
“Everyone really wants to do the right thing. When you do the right thing, good things happen,” Phinney said.
With the latest acquisition, Phinney believes good things will quickly happen on Mare Island and he’s having a ball.
“As it’s said, if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life and it’s so true. This is fun stuff,” he said.