State and local officials break ground at Roseland’s long-awaited Tierra de Rosas project

As far as milestones go — and Santa Rosa’s long-envisioned Tierra de Rosas development has had many — the groundbreaking Friday felt a little different.

Conceived more than a decade ago as a mix-use community hub in one of Santa Rosa’s most heavily Latino neighborhoods, the latest version of the Roseland redevelopment project calls for affordable housing, a community plaza, a teen center and open mercado.

It has been limping along for years, buoyed by occasional building demolitions to make way for actual construction.

But the ceremony Friday, which drew numerous city, county and state elected officials, marked the outset of infrastructure work that’s expected to begin later this month or early June.

“It’s a milestone that’s been way too long in the making,” said Sonoma County Supervisor Chris Coursey, whose district includes Roseland and much of southwest Santa Rosa.

The housing component, which includes 75 units of affordable housing and 100 units of market rate dwellings, last year ran into an $18 million funding gap needed to start infrastructure work at the 7.4-acre site on Sebastopol Road and West Avenue. The county provided $7.7 million from the general fund, while the state Legislature allocated $3 million.

Coursey committed an additional $2 million from district-specific infrastructure funds. The project also received $2 million from the county’s Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District to fund the public plaza.

Meanwhile, another $1.4 million was saved through “value engineering, fee adjustments, and other cost containment,” county officials said Friday.

The total cost of the infrastructure work and public plaza, excluding the affordable and market rate housing, is expected to be about $40 million.

Demolition of some of the last remaining structures took place beginning in December, nearly a decade after bulldozers tore down the old Albertsons grocery store and Continental Lanes bowling center, leaving a space of concrete slabs that has remained empty since.

During the ceremony Friday, elected officials, including state Senate President Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, applauded the collective effort to cobble together the funds to get started on construction.

“This project will soon be at the heart of Roseland, a home for hundreds of families for generations to come,” he said.

The vision for Roseland Village — later renamed Tierra de Rosas — came out of a 2007 urban planning document called the Sebastopol Road Urban Vision Plan, which itself was the product of several bilingual public workshops during a six-month period in 2005.

That vision called for a neighborhood center with “a mix of commercial retail, personal services, offices, residential uses, and pedestrian amenities.“ A decade later, Roseland residents would weigh in on three development proposals for the site during a public forum in summer 2015.

The city of Santa Rosa has since annexed the site but the Tierra de Rosas project continues to be overseen by the county’s Community Development Commission, which purchased the 7-acre property for about $3.5 million in 2010.

MidPen Housing, one of the largest affordable housing developers in Northern California, was selected to build the project. But it has been slow to get off the ground due to funding hurdles and other limitations.

One of the biggest obstacles was the state’s elimination of redevelopment agencies in 2011. That resulted in property tax revenues instead being used to pay down existing bonds, other obligations and pass-through payments to local governments. Tax revenue that exceeds these obligations is now used to pay core public services of cities, counties, special districts and schools.

McGuire, who was a Sonoma County supervisor when redevelopment agencies were dissolved under then-Gov. Jerry Brown, emphasized Friday the state’s commitment to such housing projects.

“Housing can be a community, a hub that lifts up residents and solidifies generational change in a neighborhood, in a county and in a state,” he said.

McGuire said he and North Bay Assembly member Damon Connolly, who was also present at the ceremony, are “going to get this project across the finish line.”

Santa Rosa City Council member Eddie Alvarez, whose district includes Roseland, recalled childhood memories of the site, which included the Albertsons and bowling alley and a laundromat used by his mother.

He acknowledged the slow pace of the project. “I used to have black hair when they started this project,” he said.

Like others at the ceremony, Alvarez said the project will be transformational for the community.

“Today, we break ground in hopes of creating a better tomorrow,” he said.

Alvarez was among several at the event who credited the work of Michelle Whitman, executive director of the county Community Development Commission. He referred to her as the “Roseland Mother Teresa” for her work advancing the project.

According to MidPen’s description of the residential component, the four-story affordable housing building will include 24 one-bedrooms, 30 two-bedrooms, and 20 three-bedrooms. The units will be available to households earning between 30-60% of the area’s median income.

The first phase of the project includes site clearing, grading, excavation and backfill; installation of the stormwater capture system; installation of utilities; surface improvements; and landscape amenities.

During the initial phases of the project, Mitote Food Park, a popular eatery located in a nearby parking lot, will remain in operation. The CDC and the operator of Mitote are in discussions about potentially relocating Mitote when the final phase of construction begins. That phase includes the construction of the one-acre central plaza.

County officials said the project’s infrastructure work is expected to be “substantially completed” by July 2026. Completion of the housing component is dependent on the success of MidPen’s housing tax credit/bond applications.

The affordable housing component is expected to start in the first half of 2025 and be completed in 2027, officials said.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.