Silent partner in project to transform Sonoma Developmental Center
Phil Barber, PRESS DEMOCRAT
In September 2005, a Stockton-based developer known as the Grupe Company paid nearly $500,000 to Riverbank, a town in Stanislaus County with about 20,000 people at the time. The money would allow the city to update its general plan. One public policy professor said at the time that he’d never heard of a private business funding a general plan, which serves as a blueprint for growth and land use.
The final study proposed three alternatives for Riverbank, all of which carved out specific benefits for the Grupe Company. After an outcry by residents, the Riverbank City Council approved a plan that would slash proposed Grupe development by half. Months later, the developer announced it was no longer interested in paying for the update.
It was a “valuable lesson in developer tactics,” as a Modesto Bee editorial put it at the time, that would seem to have nothing to do with the North Bay.
But the Grupe Company is on the verge of becoming an important player here, too. It makes up half of Eldridge Renewal LLC, the partnership selected by the state to redevelop the historic Sonoma Developmental Center campus at the western edge of Sonoma Valley.
Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2025/11/29/sonoma-developmental-center-grupe-company/