Healdsburg 2025

Editor’s note – As we celebrate our 150th year of publishing, the Healdsburg Tribune seeks to balance a reverence for the past, a keen eye on the present and a healthy curiosity about the future. Occasionally, a forward-thinking reader sends us what we like to call “A letter from the future,” examining present-day Healdsburg from an imagined perspective of the future. Jay Beckwith submitted this thoughtful and interesting essay.
I  can’t believe we’ve been away for 10 years. What started out as a few weeks with the Guinea-Bissau Water Project morphed into a year and then nine more. Now it’s 2025 and it’s time to come home and thank the people of Healdsburg for all their support.
I’d heard there had been a lot of changes but I wasn’t prepared for what we found. The first big surprise came as we came out of the Charles Schulz Airport to grab one of the taxis sitting by the curb. A curbside attendant loaded our bags and closed the trunk and we hopped in to wait for the driver to return. I about jumped out of my skin when I heard a disembodied voice say, “Where to, sir?” Thinking this was some sort of joke, I said “Healdsburg Hotel.” The voice asked, “Your name, sir?” I gave my name, the door closed and off we went … no driver!
The next revelation was less of a jolt. As we took the freeway exit and came into town I was anticipating the traffic circle that had been approved before we left on our adventure. I was pleased at how beautiful it looked and amazed that we hardly slowed down to swing around and exit on Vine Street. Wait! Isn’t the hotel on Healdsburg Avenue? The taxi replied, “I see that your reservation puts you in H5, which is at Vine and North.” Hold on, H5 – isn’t that the Purity Building? We pull up and indeed it was on the site of the old Purity Building parking lot. Purity had been restored and become a “maker space” and tech business incubator.
A bellman gathered our bags, and when I ask about paying for the cab I learn that it is included in our reservation. Nice touch. At the reservation desk, we got a lot of new information. It turns out that H5 is the latest for this homegrown hotelier. The clerk explained that H5 had been certified under the newly revised LEED-2 at the platinum level. The new standard far exceeds anything with which I was familiar, by requiring elements like “net zero” energy use and super efficient building practices that included in this case a construction system of prefabricated “mini-rooms” with modular assembly that allowed the hotel to be built in four months at 75 percent less cost.
The clerk was kind enough to show us to our room, as she realized that there would be features that would be new to us. For example, our room key is actually a smart device. It not only opens our door but also acts as a sort of pass to all of the businesses and services in town. Cool. The clerk at the desk apologized, saying that she was sorry to give us such a bulky device and we would not need it if we had any sort of smartphone, watch or other wearable device.
On entry we were astonished to see how small the room was, but the bigger head-turner was that there was no bed! The clerk seeing our consternation said, “Room, bed please.” To our astonishment the “sofa” along the wall started unfolding and shifting and within a few moments, had converted itself into a bed. Another command and it melted away.
After freshening up, we decided to see what other changes had taken place in town. The clerk had shown us how to use our “room key” which only involved talking to it. She called it a “Link,” which is connected to a vastly expanded Linkedin Network that, in turn, provides “smart” connectivity everywhere. She set the Link on “visitor” mode and explained that it would act as a tour guide; and what a tour guide the Link turned out to be.
Our first stop was going to be the SMART station, as I had looked forward to its coming to Healdsburg. Our Link instructed us to step outside the hotel and transportation would be provided. I was worried about cost but the key said that intra-town transportation is free. A few moments later, an odd vehicle that looked like a mash up of a small bus and a trolley car pulled up. Since it was a perfect day, we jumped on board at the open trolley end to join a half dozen other passengers. This time I was less confused when I was asked our destination by the driverless electric vehicle and only mildly surprised that it called me by name. We learned that the system is the prototype and is called Net-Zero Trolleys designed by a new local firm, Last Mile Transit Systems, and that Tesla manufactures the vehicles.
The SMART station was all I had expected, very nice shops all around and attractive live/work spaces that are somewhat like the Windsor Town Green in concept but done in a much more modern style. It was great to see solar panels on nearly every roof and equally satisfying to note the number of bicycles and pedestrians.
We decided to walk to the bridge, as that was only a few blocks away. After spending a few minutes at the Roundabout Train Museum, we came to the restored Memorial Bridge, which was just being finished when we left Healdsburg. Crossing the bridge, we were please to see Memorial Beach looking better than ever and excited to see that the remodeled SMART train bridge now includes a wide bike lane that was heavily populated with riders.
Continuing along the pedestrian/bike path from the park, we discovered a development that encompasses the area on either side of Healdsburg Avenue from the bridge all the way to the freeway. We learned that this new part of town is called Eastgate and that it is home to more than 2,500 people and many shops and small businesses. This gave us pause, since Healdsburg had traditionally been anti-growth. All of the people living in Eastgate are employed in Healdsburg. While many of the homes were partially subsidized so they became affordable, there were also a fair number of luxury homes in the development.
In our time in Healdsburg, there had been a strident anti-growth majority and I wondered what had changed. Our Link explained that the big turnaround came from a concept that combined workforce housing and net zero energy use. Doing a bit of Googling, we found a short history that explained the process. In 2016, the State Legislature passed, and Governor Brown signed, AB 1335, the Building Homes and Jobs Act. Our representatives had fought hard to ensure that the moneys raised by this bill stayed in the county. Concurrently the Board of Supervisors proposed an Affordable Workforce Housing Trust and used the state funds to start the trust which they augmented with a General Obligation Bond. Many of the top businesses also contributed to the trust, which started out at $20 million and continues to grow. With the money for housing now in place, the only issues became where and what kind.
It turns out that people of Healdsburg are not so much opposed to development as they are opposed to poorly planned and designed development. When the community began to see how the new designs of high efficiency housing could be paired with maximum livability they began to allow a few prototypes and their success allowed for continued carefully designed new projects.
As we walked about Eastgate, we were pleased with the charm of the public spaces that reminded us of the best villages we had visited in Italy, France and Sweden. It took us a while to realize that like those places, there were no cars. With free on demand transportation via the Net Zero system, or free bike, who needs a car?
We also learned that one of the compromises the developers made was to drastically limit the size of the homes. When we left on our sojourn to Africa, the tiny house movement was just gaining speed. It quite quickly became a core part of what has become known as “post-consumer” America, where less is more, and where status is gained more by your commitment to the community and environment than by the size of your house or cost of your car. An America where McMansions are being turned into co-housing with granny units tucked in around them.
Getting back on the Zero, we headed into old town. It was easy to see that super modern Eastgate blended nicely with the SMART neighborhood and then into downtown. We stopped for lunch at Baci, which hadn’t changed. Indeed, most of our favorite spots where still there.
Our waitress told us that we should really check out “Artect”, as the Healdsburg College for Arts and Technology is known, which is situated at he other end of town in “Northgate.” As I paid my tab, I was also pleased to learn that Healdsburg has become a no-tipping living wage town. This is another way that housing had become affordable to the workforce.
Before we left downtown, we walked around a bit more and were pleased to see so many of the same shops, as well as some interesting new ones. The biggest shocker came when we wanted to stop by Shelton’s and were shocked to see that the whole complex was gone and in its place, was a Farm to Table Market.
It turned out that Shelton’s hadn’t gone at all, but had teamed up with Casa del Mole, local farmers and new specialty food producers to create what is essentially an every day farmers’ market, plus more.
Our curiosity was now on high alert, and we took the Zero through town and up past Big John’s, where everything looks pretty much the same but as we moved further north there were several new office buildings and shops along Healdsburg Avenue.
At the north end of the Foss Creek Healdsburg Recreation Center, that was a vacant lot when we left, now stands an “eco-village” that our Link informed us was one of the first small demonstrations of the net-zero housing concept, and had started the whole movement gaining traction with the community.
When we arrived at Northgate, we found a typical tech campus combined with housing and shops. Again, the esthetic was distinctly high tech, but softened with plantings and very nice pubic spaces. In addition to Artect, we also saw what the locals called “Food School,” but is more formally known as the Culinary and Agriculture Academy.
By the end of the day we had learned a great deal. Healdsburg can now provide homes in town for most of its workforce. Many children are able to go right through the education system and into well-paid jobs, and more importantly, live in town.
This means that millions of dollars in wages that used to leave town every day to go to other areas are staying in the community, providing more jobs and a greater variety of stores. The decision to commit to a city owned broadband system, one of the fastest in the county, has lowered costs, vastly improved performance and has been essential in attracting new technology businesses.
Healdsburg has become a model for other communities and is expanding its Zero Transit system to serve the SMART stations all along the route. Many longterm residents have taken advantage of changes to zoning rules and various permits and fee adjustments to add tiny houses, or as they say in the code, Accessory Units, to their properties which they use for family, granny units and rentals.
Yes, Healdsburg has grown, and will continue to thrive. It has preserved the best of what it has always been. It is now a place where families can expect to have their children live nearby. It no longer has a parking problem. Wine and tourism are no longer the sole engines of its economy.
Who knew that coming up with solutions for housing and climate change would make such good economic sense while preserving the best of the past? It sure is great to be home.
– Jay Beckwith is a  long-time ​Sonoma County resident who’s relatively new to town and wants to be part of the process of envisioning the future Healdsburg based its many successes and history as well as the predicable impacts of new technology.