Restaurant Won't Be Reopened

By Miles Shuper

Visalia - Doogle McGuire's, gutted by fire two months ago, likely will not be reopened as a restaurant but remodeled into a law office, owners confirmed this week.

Attorney Ken Fitzgerald, one of three owners of the 5422 Cypress Avenue eatery, said a final decision, based on cost estimates and other considerations, should be made in about a month. Meanwhile, crews are gutting the building. Plans for reconstructing the building from a restaurant to offices have been submitted to City of Visalia officials. The plans include adding 404 sq. ft. of space to the existing 4,342 sq. ft. building.

Fitzgerald said two partners, Dr. Tu-Hi Hong and businessman Kevin Duyst, likely would remain co-owners in the building.

Fitzgerald said he recently renewed a three-year lease on his law office on Mineral King Avenue near Demaree Road and is still weighing options on that lease arrangement. Fitzgerald said the former restaurant building would allow for expansion of his law firm, when a fifth attorney joins the staff next summer.

Doogle McGuire's was gutted by an Aug. 2 blaze which did an estimated $2 million damage. A former employee, Isaias Lobato, 35, of Visalia was arrested and faces felony charges of arson and grand theft.

Investigators say the suspect's identity was made from still photographs taken via the restaurant's video security system. He was later arrested by police who recognized him from photographs while they were investigating an unrelated matter. Authorities believe the fire was set to cover the theft. Six hundred dollars was missing from the restaurant.

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Office Vacancies Growing

By Rick Elkins

Tulare County - More for rent or lease signs are popping up around office complexes in the county – another sign of the economic downturn being experienced nationally and locally.

“We've had a lot of new inventory and a lot of tenants vacating space,” said Laura Walheim, broker associate with Zeeb Commercial Real Estate in Visalia.

She said there appears to be roughly 30 percent more vacant office space today than a year ago and the downtrend does not appear to be over just yet.

Shane Anderson with Commercial Retail Associates said times are tough all over. He said not only are office vacancies growing, but so are retail vacancies and it is getting harder and harder to land tenants for new shopping centers.

“It's not a good time to be a landlord,” said Anderson. “Those looking for sites can almost name their prices.”

Brian Hyde of Hyde Commercial Real Estate said the development of several new complexes coupled with the downturn in the housing industry is leading to an excess of office space right now. He said there is more than a million square feet of office space in the city, with easily another 300,000 square feet in the pipeline.

“You have a lot of different locations available for lease or purchase, a lot of space coming on the market from businesses closings, so that puts downward pressure on the office market,” he said.

Walheim agreed, saying it is easy to explain the glut of office space – it's tied to the housing slump. The Voice has run story after story of businesses – escrow companies, mortgage companies – closing as the sales of homes drop. Not to be left behind, many builders have scaled back as the demand for new homes drops.

“You've got a rolling ball,” she said of the domino effect of the housing slump from mortgage companies to insurance offices, even furniture stores.

However, she does not feel Visalia has overbuilt in office space.
“Our market (offices) didn't do the crazy things residential did,” said Walheim, explaining that the cost of office space did not appreciate nearly as much as housing, so there is not as big a drop-off in what office owners can charge.

Steve Peck, vice president for The Magnano Company who is working on the Plaza Business Park development, said small offices and large offices have the best chance of being leased right now, but those middle-sized are tough to fill.

Still, he says plans are moving forward on a couple of office complexes in the city, including efforts to land tenants for the business park on Plaza Drive.

Hyde pointed to several complexes just completed or still under development. They include Tuscan Plaza, 100,000 sf (Caldwell and West), Todas Santos Courts – 48,000 sf; Plaza Business Park – 250,000 sf; Visalia Business Park on Ben Maddox and Tulare Ave. – 60,000 sf; “Then you've got a lot of miscellaneous stuff,” he added.

Tulare County Not Alone

According to a report by Grubb & Ellis, the office market has softened nationwide and weakened even more in the second quarter.

“Absorption was slightly negative, the first negative quarterly performance in more than five years,” reported Grubb & Ellis last week.

The property company predicts that vacancy rates will hit 17 percent by the second half of 2009. The company said it stands at 14 percent today.

Retail

Not as severe, Peck said it is also tougher to find a retail business for some of his company's new shopping centers.

“It's put a damper on speculative locations,” he said, explaining that businesses might be willing to locate in an solid area, but maybe not an area that has yet to build out.
“We're seeing deals that work today, as well as tomorrow, things that serve existing market,” he explained.

Anderson said his company had hoped to have all tenants lined up by now for its Orchard Walk shopping center on North Dinuba Boulevard, but the economy put a dent in those plans.

“We planned to have the whole center open in October of '08. Now it's going to take more time than originally estimated,” said Anderson.

“It's been tough to fill a new center, although it is a little bit easier with Target there,” he said. Target will open Oct. 12.

He said many retailers are telling them they want to wait and see how the economy shakes out, adding that price-base retailers like Target and Wal-Mart are still strong, while others are taking a wait and see approach.

It is especially tough to get a restaurant to come in. “We have a pad at the Target Center and we can't get anybody to go in,” said Anderson.

Tight Money

Both Anderson and Peck said even those who might want to locate their business in a center, can't always get the needed financing.

“Money is much tighter,” said Anderson.

Peck agreed, saying everybody is being cautious, especially lenders. He said many lenders are taking a “wait and see attitude” and that any long-term lending is tough to get.

He also said the “underwriting criteria” is much tougher. When a company could get financing for a project based on its name alone, today it takes much more.
Turnaround Near?

Walheim, Anderson and Peck all agreed there does appear to be some light at the end of the dark economic tunnel.

“A lot of the credit nervousness will get itself settled in late '09 or early '10,” said Peck. “We're hearing the bottom of the housing market may come in early '09.”

Walheim said “time and the election” will both help. “People need to feel more comfortable, banks need to be able to loan money,” she said, adding she sees the beginning of the turnaround coming after the first of the year.

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Kings GWF Power Plants to Expand, Run Cleaner

By Miles Shuper

Kings County - GWF Energy, LLC will expand its two power plants in Kings County with the company filing for approvals in coming weeks with the California Energy Commission for both its Hanford and NAS Lemoore area facilities.

“The plants will be much more efficient,” says Riley Jones, spokesperson for the company converting the gas turbines to so-called combined cycle units that recover waste heat.

The conversion of both power plants so they can utilize steam will generate another 50 megawatts of power in total. Right now each plant site generates 90 mw and this will mean each location will add 25 mw.

One megawatt of power can typically produce enough electricity to power 750 to 1,000 homes.

The company plans to file with the Energy Commission to amend the existing license submitting its plans Sept. 26 for the Hanford plant and Oct. 8 for the Lemoore plant called Henrietta. Already the Valley Air Board granted authority to construct licenses as of Aug. 1, says Jones.

The improved efficiency of the plant will mean better air quality with a reduction in NOx, CO2, VOCs and greenhouse gases vs. single cycle plants, says GWF.
The company says the air-cooled condensers at the plants will use no water for cooling the systems and will need just eight acre-feet per year increase over what they take now.

Jones says each plant will now hire an additional 14 people as they generate more electricity during more months of the year. Currently, these peaker plants operate only in summer months when power is scarcer and demand high. Using combined cycle technology, it's likely the plants will operate during more months of the year, but not likely to exceed 4,000 to 5,000 hours, says Riley.

GWF has recently gone through a similar upgrade of its power plant in Tracy, as all California power facilities seek efficiency and cleaner burning operations.

Jones says the plant currently has a contract with the state Department of Water Resources but it's likely that GWF will seek a utility contract for this power.
The expanded plants could be in operation in 2012. In addition to these improvements, Jones says the company is looking at the possibility of adding solar power generation at the Henrietta site across Highway 198 from the naval base. That plant is located right next to a utility substation making it easy to hook up to the grid.

Since 1989, GWF Power Systems Company, Inc. and GWF Energy LLC have constructed, owned and/or operated nine power plants/cogeneration facilities in California, with a combined generation capacity of approximately 500.

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Ocean Conditions Spell Return of Salmon
Splashing Cold Water on the Finger Pointing

California coast - Cold water is back in the Pacific Northwest and so are the salmon, say NOAA researchers.

Hotly debated this year, the collapse of the salmon fisheries off the California coast has been blamed on water diversions to farmers south of the Sacramento Delta – but scientists point to ocean conditions as the key survival factor.

Now there is clear evidence that a change in atmospheric conditions is reversing the dramatic collapse of the West Coast salmon fishery. The colder waters that are flowing along the coast are carrying a huge supply of krill and plankton that the young salmon and other marine wildlife are feasting on.

Dr. Bill Peterson, a NOAA researcher, says changes in a cyclic atmospheric conditions called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), related to a change in the wind pattern, has pulled in the chilly waters from the Gulf of Alaska that has literally set the table for a rebound for salmon which some have feared, are on the verge of extinction.

“This will be the year that saves a lot of fisheries,” says Peterson.

Conditions Flip-Flop

Since 2005, ocean conditions have been poor for both the growth and survival of the young salmon which are born in fresh water, grow up in the ocean and return to their spawning ground a year or two later.

“The delayed upwelling off the Oregon coast meant that in the critical time when juvenile salmon were entering the ocean, there was nothing for them to eat – and most of them died,” said Peterson. “But you don't see the impact until two or three years later, when the fish should first begin returning as adults.”

The colder water currents seen since spring of this year could signal several years of improved conditions for salmon if the cyclic climate pattern of the past continues. Like the El Nino/La Nina oscillation, the PDO can mean a period of colder water, the flipping to warmer water phase that has been traced by as far back as the 1600s using tree rings.

That pattern contrasts with poor ocean conditions, warmer waters and generally dry weather, with the decline of both fish and birds seen in recent years -- with California being perhaps the hardest hit.

That has led to plenty of finger-pointing by some fishing interests and environmentalists that claim that water moving through the Delta region to central and southern California has led to the collapse of the fishery.

Not Fair

“That was never fair to wag their finger at us,” says Tim Quinn of Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA), who says agriculture wants to do all it can to manage the fish population but needs storage and conveyance to hold the cold temps that young salmon need to survive. Quinn says “fair-minded observers should now be able to judge for themselves what the key factors” in the salmon's rise and fall might be. “We need to be a part of the solution now that the population of salmon is likely to get better.”

NOAA's Dr. Peterson has told the press he thinks it will take longer for the Sacramento salmon population to return to healthy levels, but that fish populations will get a boost from ocean temps that are now the lowest in 11 years. Oregon waters are now about 46 degrees – colder than anytime since 1999.

Wind-driven upwelling brings nutrients from deeper water to the surface and fuels phytoplankton blooms. Lipid-rich copepods and other zooplankton feed on the tiny plants, and in turn are consumed by anchovies, sardines, herring and other small fish that are staples in the diet of salmon and other fish. The delay in upwelling was caused by late arrival of seasonal winds, according to researchers at OSU, who published their findings in The Proceedings of the National Academy.

Peterson's research trawler off the coast recently found three times more Spring Chinook salmon than ever before. The Spring Chinook will return to rivers in 2010.
For the past 10 years, Peterson has participated in a research project funded by the Bonneville Power Administration that analyzes the distribution of juvenile salmon off the West Coast and uses genetic tracking to determine their river origin. Juvenile fish from many of Oregon's coastal rivers, along with those from the Willamette River and the Sacramento River, congregate just off the Oregon coast once they leave their river systems.

When the ocean collapse came in 2005, most of those fish starved, says Peterson.

Fish Stories

This year's fall run estimates of migrating salmon on the Columbia River, the Snake and the Klamath are all higher than expected, says a recent report, and adult salmon who are out to sea are growing and getting huge. Plenty of “fish stories” are circulating right now about 50, 60 and 70-pound catches off Canada in recent weeks. Other fish, like ling cod, crab and sea bird are also ringing the dinner bell, signaling they too are back.

But will they ring the dinner bell in the Sacramento Delta? This summer, the state Department of Fish and Game released more than 20 million smolts (young salmon) in San Pablo Bay, near the entry to the Pacific, to help them reach the ocean and with the right conditions to add a pound a month to their weight. Those salmon could come back in the summer of 2010, turning the current collapse of the fishery into a flood of fish.

As recently as 2002, the Sacramento River saw as many as 775,000 salmon return, compared to this year when just 54,000 adults were estimated. The collapse has grounded the fishing fleet up and down the West Coast which will be celebrating like all of us the return of this historic fishery.

The hatchery that releases the young fish is financed by users of the big dams like Shasta, CVP water systems financed in part by agriculture because of the loss of spawning grounds. The hatchery actually trucks young fish to where they are released.

The move by humans to help the salmon thrive can be seen on one of the West Coast's best salmon rivers – the Columbia that in 2001 had the largest run since 1938 when the dam was built on that river from hatchery-raised fish.

Salmon in California has been endangered since the gold rush days when extensive mining devastated the population. But clearly other factors played a part including the construction of dams, water diversion, exotic pests, pollution and now salmon farming.

Still, the overriding trend appears to be this flip-flop from extinction to abundance in response to the ocean condition cycles (see chart).

For the farm community, which is watching this drama play out this fall, there are still potential pumping restrictions to worry about in what could be the third year of record drought. Federal Judge Oliver Wanger, in response to lawsuits, is considering the plight of salmon in California and is likely to take the advice of scientists to manage federal water to the extent possible to nurture the survival of salmon.

The return of the salmon is no small matter to Friant Water Users districts, many from Tulare County, which have agreed to repopulate the San Joaquin River in the next few years with salmon as it was historically. Fish clamoring to come into the Delta in coming years to return to spawning grounds gives farmers, fishermen and fish a chance to survive.

Quinn believes cold water requirements for the fish will need to be produced by dams that are holding back snowmelt to store for when it is needed for all users including fish, farmers and urban uses in the state. “We need to store water and time releases to benefit fish as well as for drinking water and crops. We also need the conveyance devices to move that water when and where it is needed.”

Quinn expects the next big event for California water interests will be the final report of the Delta's Vision Task Force, likely in the next month or so. That document is likely to call for a peripheral canal to move water without disrupting the Delta, along with more water storage.

Hopes of a water bond this year were dashed by the long delay over the budget. Now Quinn believes we have lost the chance this November for a favorable vote on the statewide bond until the next general election – in 2010. “We don't want to take a chance on a small turnout in a special election expected in spring 2009” when there is likelihood there would not be enough votes to pass a bond.

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Tulare ‘Waste to Energy’ Plant Valued at $400 Million

Tulare - The City of Tulare is working on a memorandum of understanding with a start-up company, Full Circle Energy Inc., to build a $400 million waste to energy plant at the city's waste water treatment plant.

The project is just the latest of several ambitious plans in this town to build a stock car race track, the county's biggest shopping center, the state's first state-of-the-art meat packing plant in years, and land a 1.7-million-square-foot distribution center. “Tulare told us they'd like to be first,” says Full Circle CEO Fred Furrow. Tulare sought out the potential deal to site the company, the first such gasification plant that could turn landfill waste into energy, including biodiesel.

Furrow says the agreement amounts to a joint venture with the city that could “pay for itself in as little as four years.”

Ideally, the plant would utilize the waste stream of all Tulare County cities and the county, potentially eliminating the need to keep the region's dumps open, he says. Full Circle will use patented technology that doesn't burn the waste, but uses super-hot temps from a plasma torch as a heat source inside a vessel without oxygen, eliminating any pollution problems, he says.

The process will make syngas that in turn can be made into a series of products including biodiesel. “We believe we can handle 100 tons a week of solid waste to make 50 million gallons of biodiesel. The process could generate other fuels as well if they pencil out better. Right now, many municipalities would like to use a blend of biodiesel in their diesel vehicles.

The process also produces steam that the city may want to sell to the planned Western Meatpacking processing plant to be sited next door to this potential energy plant. The meatpacking project was approved by the city council just last week.
The steam could be used to generate electricity as an alternative, he says – 22 megawatts – that's about enough to power all the homes in Tulare. That power may be used to generate all the electricity needed at the water treatment plant as well.

Zero Emissions

“I think we were pleased to hear that this technology has been around for years” and this was just a matter of putting it all together, says City Manager Darrel Pyle. Pyle says there are several advantages for the city that include the fact that like all cities, “we need to find a new way to dispose of our sewer sludge,” a product that a plant can convert to energy.

Pyle says he expected the “Air Board will be interested to take a look at any plan that offers zero emissions and removes existing air pollution from the landfills.”
Pyle says even with the addition of the new fuel cells that generate electricity at the waste treatment plant, “we are still three megawatts short of meeting our own electricity requirements.”

The city manager says a formal memorandum of understanding with Full Circle will be drafted and returned to city council for approval likely in the next month.
Using the existing waste streams like hospital waste, spent tires, toxic waste, ag waste, sewage sludge and manure could all be added to the mix, eliminating the toxicity problems involved in all these materials and the cost to maintain the landfills. Among other problems, landfills generate lots of methane gas involved in global warming, says Furrow.

To convince the other jurisdictions in the county to work with Tulare on the plan, Tulare will huddle with the county's solid waste joint power authority to bring them into the mix since they all would profit from the arrangement, says Furrow.
The process will also turn the tainted water of the water treatment plant into potable water, says Furrow saying they are talking to a company which could take that water.

The plant would take up about eight acres on a 20-acre site, he says, and take two years to build after all approvals were in place. Furrow says the city will work with company to do an environmental impact report on the project before it gets the green light.

“The next step is to formalize our MOU,” says Furrow. That will free up capital from a lender to do working drawings to design the plant, says an informed source.

Clean Coal?

Furrow says besides the planned Tulare facility they have been working with the City of Fresno on a similar project. In addition, the company has big plans to use coal as a feedstock for planned eastern U.S. projects, turning coal into syngas without the harmful pollution and carbon dioxide generated from coal burning. The efficiency of such gasification plants at 70 percent could help the nation cut foreign oil use by using the coal-fired power plants, that generate nearly half the nation's power and that are completely wired to the grid, rather than build all new wind plants forcing the extension of the grid in the rural areas of Texas, as TBoone Pickens suggests.

Furrow says there are over 1,400 coal-fired plants that could be saved with clean burning gasification technology. He says the firm is working with a major utility on a contract to do the first plant.

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Former Hospital May Provide Senior Housing

By Steve Pastis

Dinuba - The City of Dinuba may soon find a single solution for two problems – what to do with the former Alta District Hospital building and property, and how to provide housing for its seniors.

“We are trying to reuse old Alta Hospital and convert it into affordable senior citizens' apartments,” said Roy Ramirez, City of Dinuba redevelopment specialist.
At its Tuesday evening meeting, the Dinuba Redevelopment Agency was scheduled to consider hiring the Affordable Housing Development Corp. (AHDC) to do a feasibility study on the idea. The Clovis-based company responded to both of the city's requests for proposals for the project.

The project, as currently envisioned, would create 97 residential units – including both one and two-bedroom units – along with a gathering hall and a swimming pool. The existing hospital building would accommodate 57 of those units and the 3.57-acre site would allow the construction of the remaining 40 units, “in clusters,” according to Ramirez.

“This is all contingent that it's feasible for them to proceed,” he added.

AHDC estimates the project would cost about $10 million. To fund the project, the city plans to apply for Redevelopment Agency funds. AHDC will apply for funds from the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee and a long-term loan that would be covered – along with operational costs – by the rents paid by seniors.

In 1999, AHDC developed Silver Ridge Senior Apartments, a project on the former site of Clovis Community Hospital. The project created 100 units – 54 new construction units and 46 units in the old hospital building – at a cost of $6.4 million, according to Laurie Schmidt, AHDC project manager.

AHDC gave Dinuba officials a tour of the Clovis apartments and they liked what they saw. “We thought that it was a good idea for our hospital,” Ramirez said.
AHDC has developed a total of 5,800 apartment units in places such as Chico, the East Bay Area, San Jose, Mammoth, Watsonville, Stockton, Bakersfield, Pasadena and Indio. The majority of these projects have involved “affordable housing,” according to Schmidt.

Alta District Hospital closed in 2001. For the past few years city officials considered what to do with the property, which the city owns. The city's development services were briefly located there, but expenses such as utilities made that “too cost-prohibitive,” according to Ramirez.

The consultants would have 180 days to present a report on the feasibility of converting the former hospital into affordable senior housing. The construction timetable would depend on the findings in the report.

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What's New

Gottschalks got a $30 million boost this week with the announcement that British Virgin Island company, Everbright Development Overseas Ltd., bought a 20% stake in the company. The company paid $1.80 a share for the stock compared to $1.38 at press time. The company appears to be planning more Chinese-made goods to be sold at the regional retailer.

All that red ink on Wall Street has stalled financing on lots of large industrial and retail projects, says Tulare City Manager Darrel Pyle. “It will be good news that congress and the president agree on the $700 billion bailout will help free up a backlog of people we know who are on hold,” including the big Western Pacific Meatpacking Company and other major projects which want to do major building deals in the Central Valley. The bailout will help large projects but also small ones like home mortgage guarantees to slow the tide of foreclosures.

For the first time, Tulare County will mitigate loss of farmland from a major road project with a payment of $616,630 to a land trust for loss of 54.1 acres due to the project. The Board of Supervisors approved the payment this week for the widening on Rd. 80 now underway. Sequoia Riverland Trust will accept the payment and will use the funds to purchase farmlands through conservation easements in the county. The county and all the cities are discussing a possible permanent ag land mitigation bank in the county when annexations or road projects take farmland out of production.

Democrat Nicole Parra has endorsed her former rival for the Assembly job, Republican Danny Gilmore, this time around. Parra is stepping down from her seat representing the 30th District, being termed out. Parra has had a running feud with Democrat Dean Florez of Shafter whose mother is now running against Gilmore. Fran Florez told the Bakersfield newspaper this week that Gilmore had spent a million dollars in 2006, saying Parra was too liberal to represent the Valley. Parra pointed to Gilmore's experience in law enforcement. The 30th Assembly district includes Kings County and a small portion of Tulare County along with Kern. Democrats have a registration advantage.

Home prices continue to decline in Tulare County and its cities. In Visalia, based on the latest numbers from DataQuick, the price of existing homes was down 21.92 percent in July compared to July '07. In Tulare, the price is off 17.56 percent.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has penalized Southern California Edison $146 million for violations related to Edison's Performance Based Ratemaking (PBR) mechanism that occurred between 1997 and 2003. Therefore, the CPUC ordered Edison to refund to its ratepayers all $28 million in PBR customer satisfaction rewards it has received and forgo an additional $20 million in rewards that it has requested. The decision also found that Edison submitted false and misleading health and safety data, and the data was used to determine PBR health and safety rewards for a period of seven years. Therefore, the CPUC ordered Edison to refund to its ratepayers all $20 million in PBR health and safety rewards and forgo an additional $15 million in rewards that it has requested. Further, the CPUC determined that Edison should refund to consumers $32,714,000, the portion of its 2003 to 2005 revenue requirement related to the utility's Results Sharing program that was affected by fraudulent data. The PUC also ordered Edison to pay a fine of $30 million to the state's General Fund for violations of the Public Utilities Code.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved $1.63 billion in funding for Southern California Edison's (SCE) smart metering program, Edison SmartConnect. SCE will install 5.3 million new “smart” meters for its residential and small-business customers from 2009 until 2012.

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Market Turmoil SlowsLocal Real Estate Sales

Tulare County - Tulare County Multiple Listing Service (MLS) shows about 2,070 active single family residences on the market as of September 20 – up from 1,700 at the end of August. “The turmoil on Wall Street and in Washington has scared the local market away” in the past few weeks, says broker Brad Maaske. To make matters worse, interest rates have ratcheted back up to above 6 percent, he says.

While some towns are seeing the majority of their transactions being foreclosures, the local count is about 39 percent, states Maaske, with another third being short sales.

Maaske says in the past 30 days 283 homes have sold and the median price in the MLS area which includes Tulare and Visalia is $167,000.

“Lenders are skittish” because of the market uncertainty and tighter credit relations, says Maaske, and it takes longer to get a loan. New rules governing investor homes are in place that limit the number of homes someone can buy as investment property to four.

Great Lakes Airline Off to Great Start

Visalia - Ridership has been good for Great Lakes Airline in the first two weeks of servicing Visalia, City of Visalia Airport Manager Mario Cifuentez said this week.

The airline began servicing Visalia Airport on Sept. 8.

“They are doing well. The numbers are encouraging,” said Cifuentez. He added the airline has had between six and nine passengers a flight for the flight that originates in Merced and ends at Ontario International Airport. Great Lakes makes two flights to and from Ontario every day on its 19-passenger plane.

“We are seeing a significant number of business travelers. We knew that would work well,” he added, saying business travelers are preferred by airlines.

People can purchase tickets via the company's Web site, www.flygreatlakes.com, or by calling the airline's reservation center at 1-800-554-5111.

Woodside Homes Offers New Home Subdivision

Visalia - Even though the company is in reorganization bankruptcy, Woodside Homes is forging ahead on a new home subdivision in Visalia this week.

Majestic Oaks, off Walnut east of Lovers Lane, is offering new homes in the low $200,000s. The subdivision has four model homes, and a company spokesperson said they had already sold 10 homes. For more information, call 622-8921.

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