Copia is a critical business in downtown Napa, not necessarily because of what it is but rather where it is, in the heart of the most recent attempts to revitalize downtown Napa.

Copia was the anchor for the emerging Oxbow district, all within a walk of Main Street and other downtown business establishments. As something that would draw mainly tourists and give them something to do besides eat and drink, it could have been a major draw to bring people downtown. Right now it doesn’t appear that will ever happen, at least with the current ownership, and it is time to sell it all outright and let someone else give it a try.

The history of its ups and mostly downs is well known by Napans now, and there is no use going over that much more or placing blame. But one salient fact that has to be addressed is there was never any unifying vision about exactly what this was. The first time I went there and had no history of its background, I was struck by the feeling that there was nothing there. "What do you do here?", I asked my niece who was here when it was built. Maybe I missed something upstairs somewhere?

When you have any kind of successful enterprise, there is invariably a single individual with a vision that is behind the success of that enterprise. Behind Ford Motors was the visionary genius of Henry Ford, behind Microsoft was Bill Gates, even in most rock bands you find out that there is one main person who is the "talent" and the rest of the band are filling in roles.

Copia never had that. And it shows. It looks like a team project of people who were hired to think something up, quick, and they all headed in different directions. Holding on to the same management structure now is not going to work. It is not a matter of how hard or smart the hired help is, it is a matter of a fundamentally flawed structure.

Ironically, that is pretty much how Napa operates all too often. My wife and I went to downtown Sonoma last weekend and were struck by how nice, well planned, and thriving it was. Healdsburg has a wonderful downtown that is vibrant as well. How did that happen? It was because all the major players in town shared a vision of how they wanted their downtown to look, and once that happened they were able to bring it about.

When you look back to the history of the inability of Napa to get a thriving downtown, a history that has been marred by constant struggles and setbacks, the usual answers are, well there was a recession, the stock market bubble, the terrorist attacks, etc. All these factors had some impact, but that all affected Sonoma and Healdsburg too, yet there they are.

The real problem in Napa is that the community itself is divided, and can’t make up its mind what it wants. There are the "Amber Martin (who got a surprising 26% of the vote in the last city council election)" Napkins who are determined to hold Napa at 1958. There are the progressive business people who want hotels and tourist attractions, the Farm Bureau whose main concern is protecting property for agriculture, the wine industry which mainly focuses on high end tourists, and others.

It isn’t so much that people don’t like each other. In fact, people get along here really well compared to most places. And there is really nothing wrong with any of their particular interests. It is just that we have competing visions about what we want, and it is a back and forth struggle that never seems to end.

Copia needs to be bought out by a single individual or corporation with a real vision of what it could be and change it into something that is not only profitable but makes a real contribution to the downtown area. This is going to have to be driven by a private owner with a vision of what it could be and the drive to make it happen. An appointed board using other people’s money that are disinterested parties is not going to work. It rarely does. Businesses that hire management with absentee owners who are not involved in the day-to-day operation is a prescription for failure.

Napa needs to work out a way for its disparate interests to reach some kind of common ground on a vision for downtown. The biggest divide can be expressed in shorthand as local vs. wine industry, and a logical starting point would be to make downtown something that locals can enjoy and meets their needs, and let the upper valley focus mainly on high end tourism. It doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive, but a matter of emphasis.

Downtown Sonoma has a very busy Mary’s Pizza Shack on the same block as some fine dining restaurants. We can have the Ritz Carlton, but lets make Copia more oriented toward something locals as well as tourists can enjoy. And beyond that, Napa is at a place where the entire county needs to come together to make an overall plan that can meet the needs of all the various players while at the same time respecting the need for a unifying vision.

Michael Haley writes a weekly Napablogger and a regular Daily Napablogger column for NapaValleyRegister.com. Haley is president of the Napa Valley Taxpayers Alliance. He can be reached at napaeagle@hughes.net