As the city of Cloverdale moves forward with developing the Thyme Square property on South Cloverdale Boulevard — it recently signed an exclusive negotiating agreement to explore affordable housing on the southernmost edge of the property — another development, that of the new Alexander Valley Healthcare (AVH) Health and Wellness Center, is moving forward as well.
According to AVH Chief Executive Office Deborah Howell, AVH is in the last leg of negotiations for the development agreement for the project and the conditions of approval. Once that finalizes, AVH can move forward with the purchase of the 2.8-acre parcel that will house its new facility.
“The development, the design and all of the graphics and building stuff has already been submitted to the city planning department and has received great reviews and approvals,” said Howell, who’s anticipating that the sale of the property will close in the next month or so.
“The bottom line is we have to own the property before we can apply for any grants, federal grants, USDA loans or anything like that — so that’s what we’re in the process of,” she said.
From there, building the facility will depend on access to funding for the project.
“There’s many different opportunities that we’re pursuing and as soon as we have that information completely confirmed and committed, then we’ll begin the actual construction,” Howell said.
AVH has some anticipated funders in mind, but Howell wasn’t able to say when, since it’s dependent on “when we close this final purchase, conditions of approval, all kinds of things that we need to apply for funding.”
When might community members begin to hear more about the project? Howell’s hopeful for summer 2021 — any future disasters permitting.
“I’m hopeful that we will be able to begin really marketing and promoting the purchase and future health and wellness center in Cloverdale by the summer,” she said. “This has been a long process and with all the different disasters that we’ve been having since 2017, that hasn’t helped this process at all. I’m saying that with caution because we’re still in this pandemic and who knows how long it’s going to take to get everything under control, though I’m hopeful.”
Also impacting the timeline of future development is a shortage of contractors and construction workers, she said.
When asked directly about how floods, fires and a pandemic have impacted the development timeline, Howell said the impact has been “tremendous.”
“I’m hoping that we don’t experience that again this year,” she said, noting that she isn’t sure how more disasters might further impact the development timeline, but that “everything in the background is pushing forward.”
The Cloverdale City Council approved a purchase and sale agreement (PSA) with AVH in March 2019 to allow AVH to take control of the site so it would be eligible for $300,000 in federal grant money. Executing a PSA was one way to give AVH site control, while still allowing the time needed by the city to negotiate a development agreement. As such, the PSA didn’t authorize development.
AVH’s planned health and wellness center “will be designed to promote an environment of wellness, verses sickness, and will offer a variety of integrated healthcare services, which include: comprehensive primary care for all ages, behavioral and mental health services, general dentistry, substance abuse treatment, financial services for insurance coverage, nutritional supplemental application assistance, and prescription assistance services,” according to its website.
Though updates about the project are few and far between, Howell said that it’s important for community members to understand that the project is still moving forward, “It’s a huge need in this community, for a health center that will serve all community residents, should they choose to go there and also provide space for additional services to be brought to Cloverdale. We’re sorry we aren’t giving more updates and information, it’s just been the disasters that have caused the delays. It’s hard to promote something when we’re all just trying to survive.
“The need is huge and the need will only continue to grow, and that’s definitely demonstrated during this COVID pandemic,” she concluded. “The need is horrendous — there isn’t enough access to care for people and access is often far away. We want to change that dynamic and be able to provide community-based services for all that live in our area.”
