The Esmeralda Institute is a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to lifelong learning across generations, inspired by the 150-year-old Chautauqua Institution.
The Esmeralda Land Company is an independent, for-profit company that is developing the project.
Esmeralda does not yet own the property in Cloverdale. We recently purchased an option that gives us an exclusive right to buy the property at some time in the future.
Before closing on the purchase, we are engaging in a rigorous due diligence (DD) process. The purpose of our DD process is to understand whether our development vision is financially, politically, and environmentally feasible.
If we decide to close on the purchase, the next step will be an extensive planning, design and entitlement process.
Years prior to Esmeralda Land Company’s involvement, Cloverdale approved the 266-acre AVR property for a flagship hotel, spa, restaurants, homes, shops, and an event/conference center.
The Esmeralda Land Company team has met with Cloverdale’s City Manager, the Mayor, and all five Council members to understand their hopes for the AVR property and build upon the City’s vision, including the hotel.
This June, the Esmeralda Institute organized a month-long 1,300-person gathering in Healdsburg called Edge Esmeralda, modeled after Chautauqua’s summer program. The event received coverage from The Press Democrat, The Healdsburg Tribune, and Sonoma Magazine.
Cloverdale plans for a projected population of around 13,600 people by 2040, a 48% increase from its estimated population of 9,213 people in 2020. The City’s 2020 Urban Water Management Plan found that “city-wide demand is expected to increase proportionally to projected population growth” and that “the City is well positioned to reliably supply water to its customers while supporting regional supply reliability efforts through 2040.”
While Cloverdale has plenty of water to support growth, one of our core design principles is to “Harmonize with nature”, and water conservation is a critical part of that. The AVR property was originally approved for a golf course, but we’ve removed it from our plans, in large part because it is an extremely water-intensive use.
One of our first due diligence steps was to commission a private water supply assessment (WSA) which confirmed that the City has enough capacity to serve our potential development. If we proceed with the acquisition of the site, we will publish a public copy of the study. Needless to say, the City will need to commission its own study, and the final WSA will be part of a larger environmental review of the project.
Not at all! Esmeralda will be open to the public. In fact, this land has historically been closed to the public, and we plan to change that.
Far from being a gated community, we plan to build out a vast new network of publicly accessible trails across the site, including the SMART Pathway and the Great Redwood Trail.
Additionally, the Institute will host activities, events, and classes that all Cloverdale residents can enjoy.
The opposite of iIsolation, our goal is to build a multigenerational, diverse, vibrant, and walkable village that emphasizes the public realm, neighborliness, and human connection. In fact, you can think of Esmeralda as an “un-gated” community.
Cloverdale is our most important partner in this project.
Esmeralda Land Company is backed by patient, values-aligned investors who see this as a unique opportunity to create a special place that will bring new opportunities and energy to Northern Sonoma. No, Esmeralda Land Company is not part of California Forever. :)
Esmeralda is the Spanish word for “emerald”. A Spanish name felt fitting given the history of California and Sonoma’s Mediterranean climate.
Plus, I have family from Chile, Guatemala, and Argentina and speak Spanish at home, so the name just felt right.
Esmeralda is also one of the fictional cities in one of my favorite books, Invisible Cities. by Italian writer Italo Calvino.
The property is the site of a former sawmill, and it has been zoned for redevelopment since 2009. This will be an adaptive reuse of formerly industrial land.
Several decades ago, the site was occupied by heavy sawmills and wood processing operations. Under the regulatory guidance of the Regional Water Quality Control Board, the site’s current owners have spent significant sums on remediation from these industrial uses.
Today, the site is vacant, except for an old truck repair shop located in the northwest corner. CalFire occasionally conducts drills on the property that involve bulldozing paths to improve their firefighting skills.
However, there also are a handful of natural areas that are relatively untouched. We plan to restore and preserve 60% of the site as open space, including the most beautiful mature trees.
No, Esmeralda is not related to California Forever, and our project is very different from their proposal. They are building a large new city built from scratch in a rural, unincorporated area; we are creating a new neighborhood inside the boundaries of an existing incorporated city, on a former industrial site.
The political and social context couldn’t be more different. The City of Cloverdale started analyzing the 266-acre site for potential redevelopment over 20 years ago. As far back as 2004, the City published a draft EIR for the property that included a flagship hotel, spa, restaurants, homes, shops, and an event/conference center. Twenty years later, we are showing up as private-sector partners, helping the City to achieve its vision while adding new energy and ideas.
Since we announced our plans to purchase the property this summer, we have received tremendous local support: hundreds of messages of encouragement, and dozens of invitations for coffee and walks. Everyone I have met wants to share ideas and learn more about our plans. I’m impressed with the YIMBY sentiment in Cloverdale.
A year before this summer’s formal announcement, we reached out to local leaders to learn about the history of the site and Cloverdale’s unique opportunities and challenges. The fact that the City Council, Chamber of Commerce, and City Manager were helpful and supportive of our ideas and interest in the site was a big part of our decision to move forward. We are here to create a win-win situation, and one of our key selection criteria for a site was a local community that welcomed us and was excited to work together.
One reason the City is excited about this project is that it will generate substantial property tax and TOT (Transient Occupancy Tax) for the town. The City has a structural budget deficit of about $1 million. This is where the idea to build a flagship hotel on the site comes from, and why it’s required in the Development Agreement associated with this property that was approved over 10 years ago.
Cloverdale residents tell us that they are excited that our potential project will generate new jobs, bring foot traffic and vitality downtown, and attract investment more generally in the City.
Yes! The land is a 4 min bike ride from the future terminus of the SMART train, which runs to Marin’s ferry. Also, we’d like to connect our onsite trails to the SMART Pathway and Great Redwood Trail.
The SMART train runs to Larkspur, where you can get on a ferry straight to the San Francisco Ferry Building: It doesn’t yet extend to Cloverdale, but SMART recently closed the funding for the extension to Windsor and Healdsburg. SMART only began operating in 2017 and has been quickly extending the network.
We’re also thrilled that the SMART Pathway is slated to extend up to Cloverdale and right near our site as well. It runs parallel to the train, and it will connect Cloverdale to the rest of Sonoma and Marin to the the south.
Meanwhile the Great Redwood Trail will connect to Cloverdale from the north. It currently runs from Humboldt County through Mendocino County. The next stretch will connect to Cloverdale. As the northernmost city in Sonoma, Cloverdale will be the perfect jumping off point to the Great Redwood Trail.
Esmeralda could one day be like those beautiful villages along the Danube Cycle Path, which runs through Germany, Austrian, and Hungry.
It is important to us that this new neighborhood support a wide range of incomes and life stages. To that end, our housing vision includes:
Notably, Cloverdale is one of the few cities in Wine Country that has not only met but surpassed its RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Allocation) target for Low Income housing! And in fact, it has missed its targets for Moderate and Above Moderate.
We are coming in as partners to help the City meet their obligations to build more of this type of housing, as well as continuing to build more Low Income housing.
| Income Group | 2015-2023 Goal | Realized | % of 2015 Goal | 2023-2031 Goal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Very Low | 71 units | 119 units | 🟢 168% | 86 units |
| Low | 45 units | 42 units | 🟢 107% | 55 units |
| Moderate | 71 units | 10 units | 🔴 14% | 45 units |
| Above Moderate | 152 units | 87 units | 🟠 57% | 149 units |
The original idea to build a flagship hotel came from the City over 10 years ago, and it is required in the Development Agreement associated with this property.
The hotel will generate substantial TOT (Transient Occupancy Tax) for the City. This will be a critical source of funding for public services, as the City currently has a structural budget deficit of about $1 million.