Comstock's magazine 1119 - November 2019 | Page 54

n DEVELOPMENT
business partner to cancer a month before he reopened. One
of her final requests, he says, was that the family move for-
ward with opening the restaurant in Chico.
“The town is going to take at least five years to see suc-
cessful businesses, and I can’t wait that long,” Tovalin says.
He offered jobs to what remained of his old kitchen and wait
staff, hired new ones to fill the gaps of those who had moved
away, and opened Cafe de Paradiso’s doors in August. “I miss
everyone I knew, but a lot of them come here, and we’re hap-
py to see each other.”
But for every success story, there’s another of defeat: Par-
adise was long considered a cheaper option for housing than
Chico, and many business owners, having lost their homes in
the fire, have had to close their stores in neighboring cities.
CORPORATE RECOVERY
On the day of the fire, a group of residents and firefighters
who were unable to evacuate in time sheltered in a wide
swath of an asphalt parking lot, surrounded by fire trucks
and their cars, as they huddled together and waited for the
fire line to pass over.
The property whose parking lot provided enough defen-
sible space to keep them all alive is owned by Sacramen-
to-based Ethan Conrad Properties — a company known for
its business model of rejuvenating commercial properties in
disrepair. Though the Kmart had filed for bankruptcy prior
to the fire and will not return to that location, Ethan Conrad
Properties has no plans to sell the strip mall in Paradise, an-
chored by a reopened and currently thriving SaveMart, an-
other anchor in the complex.
“One of the things I’ve been hearing from a lot of business
owners in the area is that the businesses that are going to
thrive and succeed are the ones that cater to the workers,” says
Ross Tolbert, director of property management for Ethan Con-
rad. “Obviously, there are people who are planning on return-
ing to Paradise and rebuilding or in the process of rebuilding
now,” Tolbert says, but the next nearest option is a 30-minute
drive away, so the need for some business is already there.
Tolbert says Ethan Conrad has been getting a lot of inter-
est from former business owners in the town who are “step-
ping their toe out and asking” about possibly renting proper-
ty. But, even with that, and the majority of the old businesses
still operating in their commercial park, Tolbert hedges at
the idea of Paradise making a quick recovery.
“I don’t think anybody knows the answer,” he says. “No-
body. I think people wish they would know the answer, but is
it going to be three years, or is it going to be five?”
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comstocksmag.com | November 2019
“I’m here because I want to be an
inspiration to other people in
business. I respect everybody else’s
decision, but I’m taking a calculated
risk because there’s a need for this.”
Nicki Jones, owner, Nic’s Restaurant
FIRED UP AND READY TO GO
Before Nov. 8, the largest employer in Paradise was Feath-
er River Hospital, with an annual revenue of $230 million.
Owned by Adventist Health, the medical facility had a staff
of 1,300 and contributed nearly 30 percent to Paradise’s
economy. Though the hospital was damaged beyond use, the
emergency room survived, as did one of three nearby health
clinics. Through Senate Bill 156, the ER is allowed to remain
open by partnering with Yuba City’s Rideout Memorial Hos-
pital (also in the Adventist Health system) 50 miles away, but
that’s all that remains of a once-thriving medical community
in Paradise that once served 10,000.
Though Adventist hopes and plans to rebuild the damaged
portions of the hospital, employment there will not be any-
where near what it previously was for many years to come, said
Richard Thorp, a physician and president of the Paradise Med-
ical Group, speaking to Politico in June. Now, the largest em-