Saratoga News

Mediation puts Argonaut Center's plans back on track

New management company takes over daily operations

Project could begin soon

By Sarah Lombardo

Almost a year after Argonaut Associates Paul Hulme and Carole Rodoni and Cupertino developers Deke Hunter and Ed Storm won approval from the Saratoga Planning Commission to renovate the Argonaut Shopping Center, plans seem to be back on track. But this time the project is moving ahead under different property management. Day-to-day operation at the center has changed hands. Willis & Co., a Sunnyvale commercial property management firm with some 3.5 million square feet of Bay Area property, is now in charge of day-to-day management.

Company President Eric Willis said the change in management took place in December, and that the Hunter Group will no longer oversee operations at Argonaut. Willis said he did not know the status of renovation plans but said, "The Hunter Group will no longer be taking the lead in bids and contracts [for the project]. The other owners will."

Remodeling plans for the center on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road came to a standstill last year with turmoil among the center's owners and management. A lawsuit was filed in July in which Hunter and Storm accused Rodoni and Hulme of overstepping their bounds, violating a contract between the parties and causing expensive delays in the project. Hulme and Rodoni, owner and CEO, respectively, of Alain Pinel Realtors in Saratoga, denied the charges. In an interview with the Saratoga News, Rodoni said, "The disagreement went to mediation and was settled to the satisfaction of everyone. We have bids out, and so I think by March or April, we will start to see the renovation of this center, which is long-awaited."

James Niven, attorney for Rodoni and Hulme, could not comment on the settlement but said plans were ongoing. "Everyone is looking forward to the project moving ahead promptly," he said.

Willis said that with bids out, "The potential is then to begin fairly quickly." He stressed, however, that the speed at which the project moves depends on many factors, including permits.

Plans for the project were approved by city planning commissioners after four attempts by the architectural firm of S.J. Sung and Associates to find a design rural enough to please the commission, new enough to satisfy the merchants and practical enough to make the project worthwhile for the owners. Planning commissioners finally approved the renovation--which included the remodeling of existing buildings, the construction of two additional freestanding buildings and the expansion of the 30,070-square-foot Safeway supermarket by 10,720 square feet--in early February. The project was temporarily held up shortly thereafter when City Council members Paul Jacobs and Stan Bogosian called the project up for council review. The month-long wait before the council finally discussed and approved the plans in late March would be nothing compared to the delay later caused by the lawsuit to follow in July. Throughout the process, many merchants have expressed impatience that it was being held up; merchants and residents alike claim the center, the city's largest, is in dire need of a facelift.

Since the city's approval, coffee giant Starbucks Coffee Co. was granted a use permit in August to open shop in the center where a travel agency is now located. But management staff at TMC Vacation Center stressed then that they didn't have plans to move from their site.

The approval was Starbucks' first successful attempt at getting into Saratoga; it previously made two runs at the Village, first on Big Basin Way--where the Saratoga Drug Store is located--and then at the corner of Los Gatos-Saratoga Road and Big Basin Way, the site of Corinthian Flowers.

The Argonaut Shopping Center was built in the 1970s and once sported a Hallmark gift shop, a religious book store and a delicatessen in addition to the Safeway and Longs Drugs still located there. Once construction begins at the center, it is expected to be completed within about seven months.

denied the charges. In an interview with the Saratoga News, Rodoni said, "The disagreement went to mediation and was settled to the satisfaction of everyone. We have bids out, and so I think by March or April, we will start to see the renovation of this center, which is long-awaited."

James Niven, attorney for Rodoni and Hulme, could not comment on the settlement but said plans were ongoing. "Everyone is looking forward to the project moving ahead promptly," he said.

Willis said that with bids out, "The potential is then to begin fairly quickly." He stressed, however, that the speed at which the project moves depends on many factors, including permits.

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