Marin’s population is growing at a faster pace than earlier in the decade and that may be directly linked to the strong economy and younger families coming to the county.
The county saw population growth of 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 percent between 2010 and 2013. Between 2013 and 2014, the county’s population jumped 0.9 percent and last year the increase was a more modest 0.7 percent, but still more than what was seen earlier.
“It is the stronger economy that has allowed people to afford Marin,” said Robert Eyler, CEO of the Marin Economic Forum — a public-private partnership that works to enhance the county’s economic vitality. “There is not much new housing being built in Marin, but you may have a case where a single senior is moving to a retirement home and a family moving in with children.”
A decades-old San Rafael pawn shop has closed as part of what observers described as evolution in the industry.
Alan Hyman, owner of the 57-year-old Pawn Advantage at 846 Fourth St., sold his business to Robert Verhoeff, owner of Best Collateral. The latter company has eight stores in the Bay Area, including one in San Rafael, and has a forward-thinking business model, according to Marin Economic Forum head Robert Eyler.
With Pawn Advantage shuttered in Marin, it appears that Best Collateral is essentially the last pawn shop in the county. The Gold Drop in San Rafael buys gold but does not accept items for pawning, industry sources said, and Hyman and Verhoeff said they knew of no other pawnbrokers in Marin. A call to the Gold Drop was not returned.
Old-school pawn shops are taking a beating for many reasons, Eyler said.
Rob Eyler, CEO of the Marin Economic Forum and an economics professor at Sonoma State University, said, “At the current minimum-wage level, the two major options are to combine households or commute from a lower-rent area. We don’t have a great solution for it because we love the way markets work in almost every other way, but there are social costs.”
To afford a one-bedroom unit in Marin County, someone earning the California minimum wage of $9 per hour would have to work 140 hours per week, according to a report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
[L]eaders of the center believe it can be more of a cultural resource and are creating a new homegrown nonprofit, the Marin Cultural Association, to help raise revenue and contributions to help pay for improvements, repairs and programs.
The idea follows in the civic footsteps of the Marin Center Renaissance, which was formed to build new buildings and facilities on the Marin Center site. That ambitious plan ran out of steam, largely thanks to the financial hit to private and county funds during the recession.
A 2013 study prepared by the Marin Economic Forum concluded that by expanding the number of events staged at the Marin Center, revenue could dramatically increase not only for the county, but for surrounding businesses.
Increasing use of the center, especially for multi-day events, would dramatically increase that contribution to the local economy, the study concluded.
Marin County tallied the highest median income among all counties in California in 2013, according to new figures released last week by the state’s Franchise Tax Board. In 2013, the county’s median income was $57,224 for individual tax returns and $133,389 for joint returns.
Marin has led the state in this category as far back as the tax board’s public archive goes—since 1999—and the latest data is the highest median-income mark the county has enjoyed during that entire period. Median income is computed to give a sense of how much income a typical taxpayer makes, and economists tend to view it as a barometer for how a local economy may be performing. Still, many analysts say the latest figures paint an incomplete picture.
“We have no idea about how wealthy households are,” said Robert Eyler, the executive director of the Marin Economic Forum. Income data collected in affluent cities in southern Marin disproportionately drive up the county’s overall median-income figure, he said. As a result, the data does not accurately represent the entire scope of the county’s motley regional economies, especially those in North and West Marin.
A political showdown is imminent on a multinational trade agreement that has been championed by Marin County native Michael Froman, the U.S. trade representative since 2013.
Originally conceived during the administration of George W. Bush, the Trans-Pacific Partnership has been expanded from four Asian countries to 12 countries on both sides of the Pacific stretching from Peru and Chile to Japan and Vietnam, and accounting for 40 percent of global economic activity.
KENTFIELD, Calif., May 1, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Last night Tesla Motors, Inc. held a live presentation at Tesla Design Studio in Los Angeles. During the event Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel unveiled a new Tesla battery that has home, commercial/industrial, and utility-scale storage applications.
College of Marin holds the distinction of being the first community college in California partnering with Tesla to install the new stationary storage products on campus. “As a college committed to innovation and sustainable practices, we are thrilled to be partnering with a company that is on the forefront of advancing energy alternatives,” Coon said.
The Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato announced Tuesday that it has entered into a partnership agreement with Calico Life Sciences, a Google-backed life extension company based in South San Francisco.
“It’s a great partnership between two organizations aimed at helping people live longer healthier lives, and we look forward to collaborating with their team,” said Buck Institute CEO Brian Kennedy, in a prepared statement.
Chris Stewart, chairman and CEO of the North Bay Life Science Alliance, an effort to develop the North Bay into an economic hub for life-science companies, said, “We’re very excited. You’re seeing for the first time a significant amount of private sector money going into research on aging. I think it is a good marriage between the two organizations.”
MARIN COUNTY — Filmmaker George Lucas hopes to build 224 units of affordable workforce and senior housing on the same Grady Ranch property where he had once planned a film studio, a proposal he withdrew after years of opposition.
Working with Lucas’ Skywalker Properties, the nonprofit Petaluma Ecumenical Properties Housing submitted a pre-application to the Marin County Community Development Agency on April 15 and requested that planners begin a preliminary review of conceptual development plans.
The Golden Gate Bridge district has approved a lease with the Marin Airporter for a new hub in San Rafael after district officials reclaimed the Larkspur site for added ferry parking.
The bridge district board voted Friday to approve a five-year lease with the Airporter at a 3-acre site it owns at 1011 Andersen Drive. They have been at the Larkspur site since 1985.
The Airporter will pay $20,202 a month in rent. The lease begins May 15 and the Airporter could begin operations at the San Rafael site by July 1, bridge officials said.
