Faced with staggering debt, Copia is planning to sell off its 12-acre riverfront property on the Oxbow.

Copia leaders hope to lease back part of the current campus to continue a full slate of wine and food programs in Napa, while planning to open a new facility in San Francisco.

“We are committed to Copia’s home base and headquarters remaining in Napa,” Copia CEO and President Garry McGuire stated in an e-mail.

“The core business of Copia is healthy and growing,” he wrote. However, he said, Copia’s $78 million bond debt “is not sustainable.”

“The best solution is to move Copia to a facility that is not encumbered by so much debt” and get the highest price for the property itself, he wrote.

The sale would signal a major shift in the seven-year struggle to make Copia, a one-of-a-kind cultural center toasting wine, food and the arts, an economic success.

The $55 million center opened in November 2001. Napa officials hailed it as anchor for hotels and restaurants that would draw tourists to downtown and the Oxbow.

While the area has recently come to life with restaurants and tasting rooms nearby, the campus, which was the dream of vintner Robert Mondavi, never drew the expected crowds.

In September, Copia laid off 24 of its 80 full-time employees and introduced scaled-back seasonal operating hours of three days a week.

Garen Staglin, a member of Copia’s board of directors, said Wednesday that Copia had essentially run out of options for maintaining its Napa campus as is.

“(McGuire) is doing everything he can to preserve the mission of Copia and to do so in the reality of the situation we’re in,” Staglin said.

“One of the options I know he’s pursuing is leasing back part of the space.”

While Copia has struggled, it has also hosted hundreds of popular concerts, a regular movie series, wine-tasting programs and conferences. Its gardens have been home to a weekly farmers market and the main event for the annual Mustard Festival.

However, the 2009 Mustard Festival will not take place at Copia, and the farmers market will not return to the Copia parking lot next year. Copia is not scheduling events sponsored by other groups past Dec. 31.

“Copia’s business model is food and wine education, not leasing out the property for special events,” wrote McGuire. “We made changes earlier this year to get Copia out of the special events business and I have no plans to return.”

Asked whether he hoped to sell the property by the end of the year, McGuire wrote, “We have set no deadline for the possible sale of the property.”

Eye on the city

Napa Councilman Peter Mott said he wasn’t surprised that Copia was having to radically reinvent itself. The bond debt dwarfs the revenue that Copia can generate at its present location, he said.

While Copia may establish a profitable wine and food operation in San Francisco, Mott predicted that Copia would retain a “significant” presence in Napa.

In September, McGuire announced plans to open a 40,000-to-50,000-square-foot Copia center in San Francisco. The operation would include a TV studio, cooking school, wine classes, wine bar and retail store.

“There are 16 million food and wine lovers in (the San Francisco Bay Area) and we’re getting very few of them in Napa,” McGuire said at the time.

Copia was losing millions of dollars annually before he was appointed CEO in March, McGuire said. Despite major staff cutbacks and reducing fall and winter hours to just three days a week, the prospect of ever operating in the black wasn’t there, he said.

Joe Peatman, president of Copia’s board of directors, declined to comment on Copia’s future.

Napa City Councilwoman Julia Inman said the news of a possible Copia sale took her by surprise. Perhaps the Copia building can become a conference center, she said.

Asked what went wrong with Copia, Inman said, “I think it’s an institution in search of clarity of mission. It’s a noble, but somewhat amorphous, idea.”

“It’s a shame that the organization could not stay a little longer. The area has great potential for economic success,”  wrote Lisa Batto, executive vice president of the Napa Chamber of Commerce.

“Copia did a lot of good in this community by working with many nonprofit organizations to provide a venue for fundraising efforts. They will be missed,” Batto wrote.

“We know that Copia is looking at their options,” said Cassandra Walker, economic development director for the City of Napa, but the facility has not approached her office about any changes. “I think that there’s a lot of re-use options (at Copia),” she said.

“We’ll continue to work with them. It’s premature for me to say anything they are going to do or not do,” Walker said.

Finding the formula

Copia opened after an intense fund-raising campaign in which big names in the Napa Valley wine industry made major contributions.

Mondavi himself contributed more than $27 million, including the acquisition of the land on what had been a decrepit area in the middle of the Oxbow in the Napa River.

The dream of turning the Oxbow into a tourist zone has gradually taken shape, with Oxbow Public Market, the new Westin-Verasa and a planned Ritz-Carlton resort giving tourists a reason to deviate off Highway 29 and into downtown Napa.

Ironically, while surrounding properties developed, Copia, the catalyst for these changes, languished. Copia was born in the waning days of the dot-com boom, and expectations for the center ran high. But the economic cooldown after 9/11 put a chill on the center.

Over the years, the center has made several changes in order to find a winning formula. It has lowered admission prices, added emphasis on wine-tasting and dining and reduced emphasis on the arts. Earlier this year, Copia permanently waived its admission charge.

Copia was a popular venue for Friday night movies and live entertainment, but its wine and food classes and permanent exhibits never drew many customers. Including restaurant staff, Copia has approximately 60 employees, wrote McGuire.

“We have no plans currently to lay any employees off,” McGuire wrote. “If we are successful in our efforts with the bond insurance company, then Copia will continue operations in the existing building until a new home is identified and developed.”