From: SF Business Times

House Properties is injecting a rare dose of density into development-averse Mill Valley.

The company, operated by investor Mike House and partner Rick Ronald of Skyline Pacific Properties, is putting the final touches on 505 Miller Ave. The $8 million to $9 million project represents a number of firsts for the upscale suburb, including its first true mixed-use complex and first live-work lofts above retail.

“This is a live-work town and we don’t have live-work,” said House, a Mill Valley resident. “You have a lot of physiologists and attorneys and architects who want to live here and work out of their house. And we have no product for it.”

Tamalpais Commons will total 21 housing units (five are below-market rate) and six commercial condos. Four 1,020-square-foot live/work units sit above six retail condos in a three-story, 15,000-square-foot building along Miller Avenue. In the rear of the property, overlooking Corte Madera Creek, are 12 single-family homes and five single-story condominiums.

The inspiration for 505 Miller Ave. was a previous Mill Valley project House did — a 5,000-square-foot development at 420 Miller, next to Whole Foods. That project, which replaced a vacant muffler shop, has a Design Within Reach store, two office condos, and two apartments.

After that project, completed in 2004, House acquired a defunct assisted living facility at 505 Miller. The company then embarked on an 18-month entitlement process that included five public hearings and dozens of neighborhood meetings.

“If you want to do things right in Marin you have to spend a lot of time up front,” House said. “We could have built a box here. Economically that would have been the more profitable thing for us to do. But that was one of those things that my partner and I said, ‘No way are we going to do that.’”

Five of six commercial condos are spoken for. The Dish, an 1,800-square-foot restaurant from the owners of Bungalow 44 and Buckeye Roadhouse, will occupy three of the condos. A toy store and a yogurt shop are also under construction.

On the residential side, the picture is less clear. With the housing market still weak, House has decided to put just four of the units on the market immediately for $875,000 to $1.25 million and rent out the others for the foreseeable future.

Residential broker Jim King of Morgan Lane, who is handling the marketing, said demand is still strong in Mill Valley for properties priced under $1.2 million.

“We think there should be demand for those,” said King. “It’s a great location in Mill Valley — it’s almost an urban feel in small town Mill Valley.”

Bob Silvestri, an architect active in Mill Valley development politics, said 505 Miller was a rare opportunity to do urban-style mixed-use development without diluting the sleepy charm that makes Mill Valley so attractive. The site is unusually large for Mill Valley and is located on a busy stretch of Miller Avenue that is home to large-scale buildings like Safeway and Tamalpais High School. It didn’t hurt that Tamalpais Commons is replacing a derelict former nursing facility that had been vacant for more than 10 years.

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