Copia is for sale — but without a specific asking price.

Representatives for ACA Financial Guaranty Corporation have listed the building that once housed Napa’s nonprofit center for wine, food and the arts and the surrounding property for either lease or purchase, said Jerry Pietroforte, managing director with Alvarez & Marsal Real Estate Advisory Services.

The search for a buyer or tenant for the shuttered center comes as the plan to liquidate Copia’s assets nears expected approval in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Oct. 27.

In November 2008, the center that hosted Julia’s Kitchen restaurant, wine tastings, movies, concerts and other events abruptly closed and subsequently filed for bankruptcy. With Copia’s debt totaling $78 million, “In an ideal world, we would want to see an asking price of $78 million-plus,” Pietroforte said.

“Realistically, I don’t know if the property is worth $78 million,” he added. “The objective is to maximize recovery for a client within the bounds of an appropriate use for the community.”

ACA Guaranty is the insurer of the Copia bonds and is in charge of the liquidation of the center’s assets, from its wine collection to the property at the edge of the Napa River in the Oxbow District.

According to court documents, in late 2008, Copia estimated that the value of the property at $30 million. In November 2008, an unnamed developer submitted a letter of intent to purchase the property for $37 million. The deal did not go forward. In March 2009, the property was appraised at $24,860,000.

Pietroforte expects several investors to consider the property, but only a handful to make offers. “We’ve probably already met the kind of people that will likely step up,” Pietroforte said.

The firm has talked with city officials, community groups and other investors, but Pietroforte declined to specify who has approached the firm about offers.

John Salmon represents the Coalition to Preserve Copia, a group of local investors and business people who’d like to shape the future of the center and property. The group made a previous offer that ACA rejected.

“We remain disappointed that ACA chose not to accept our prior purchase offer, but are pleased they have finally requested formal proposals to lease or purchase all or portions of the property,” Salmon said. He declined to elaborate on the group’s original offer.  

“Our intentions with the property have not changed at all,” he said. However, “We have not yet decided if we will submit a proposal.”

Interested parties have until Nov. 12 to respond.

“It’s possible they won’t receive any offers they deem acceptable,” Salmon added. “It’s up to the whims of the marketplace. You don’t really know until Nov. 12 what’s going to come in.”

Cassandra Walker, the city’s redevelopment manager, said, “Hopefully we will find a developer with a plan for reuse of the property that is in sync with what the Downtown Specific Plan envisions for the site.”

The downtown plan, currently in the works, contemplates the future of the downtown core, including Copia and the Oxbow area, Walker said.

Developers haven’t approached her office about Copia recently, but Walker thinks that will change now that the proposal process has been initiated. Besides local prospective buyers, “We expect national prospective buyers to talk to us during their review of the site.”

“I think that having this kind of process benefits both the community and the bondholders,” Joe Fischer, acting Copia president, wrote. “The broad exposure of the Copia property will surely lead to the highest possible price and net proceeds for bondholders. I also think that the sales process will expose the property as well as our community to many potential parties that could make an investment in the renaissance that we are creating downtown.” The former Copia property spans more than 17 acres with three contiguous parcels and will be sold or leased as a whole or as individual pieces. The centerpiece of the site is the two-story, 78,632-square-foot Copia building.  The facility includes:

• the former “Julia’s Kitchen” restaurant

• administrative office space

• 13,000 square feet of exhibition space

• a 270-seat theater

• a library

• classrooms with audio-visual capabilities

• a 127-seat demonstration kitchen forum, café and retail gift shop.

 Copia, envisioned by the late vintner Robert Mondavi as a way to toast Napa Valley’s role in the wine and culinary worlds, opened in 2001.˓