Town Green adjusts after church deal sours

WINDSOR ? The next phases of the $100 million Town Green Village mixed-use project are being adjusted now that a church relocation project on one site has been scrubbed and the church opted to sell its existing location to another developer.

Town Green Village LP is working around a three-quarter-acre hole in its planned four-acre phase 6 of the development, since Unity Spiritual Center of Sonoma County decided to extend an option to purchase the church property at 195 Windsor River Road to Sebastopol-based Greenmark Interests Inc.

Meanwhile, Town Green Village is proposing the construction of 14 more housing units and 8,000 to 9,000 square feet of commercial space at the phase 7 site of the development. That would replace the site the church was supposed to move to until the congregation dropped that idea last year.

The deal between Town Green Village and Unity Spiritual Center dates to a December 2003 purchase agreement. The developer was to buy the church site for $875,000 and build a larger facility for the congregation on the phase 7 site.

The original agreement gave a deadline of April 2005 for completion of that project. But that was extended to April 2006 when the design of the new church facility encountered problems with town approval. However, in February 2006, the town asked for three alternate designs of the new church, and the church decided doing so would be a "futile effort" and would not give it the design it wanted, according to documents in a lawsuit Town Green Village brought that February when the church sought to rescind the purchase agreement.

Town Green Village and Unity Spiritual Center signed a settlement in August in which the developer would purchase the current church property at a newly appraised value plus $441,000 then rent the property to the church for $2,500 a month, excluding taxes and insurance until June 2008, according to court documents.

In February of this year, Unity Spiritual Center entered a purchase option with Greenmark for $50,000 plus $4,000 a month, starting in April and running for nine months, according to a report in the church's newsletter by outgoing treasurer Kevin Maas.

Barry Vennard, the church's interim minister, said the lawsuit settlement ended the purchase arrangement with Town Green Village and that escrow would close on the new deal in 16 months.

Orrin Thiessen, managing member of Town Green Village, said last week he considers the matter closed after five years in progress and several hundred thousand dollars spent on the church relocation endeavor. Right now he's focusing on design of phase 6, which includes land to the east and north of the church property. He's vying for a specialty grocer in about 9,000 square feet of the project to bring an anchor tenant to the development.

At the phase 7 site, Town Green Village has broken ground on the first phase of the project which includes housing above shops. Mr. Thiessen is planning to submit plans for the second phase in April as considerations for the next round of housing-unit allocations under the town's growth-management ordinance begin.

Bob Jenkins of Greenmark said he won't start serious planning for the Unity Spiritual Center site until next year, but an initial idea, based on allocation for the 36 housing-unit Town Green Village secured in the fall for the site, would be a three-and-a-half-story building with retail on the ground floor and 24 residential one-bedroom and loft-style condominiums above.