After four-year search, refurbished Arsenal centerpiece finally gets new tenant

Benicia City Council finally has leased the Commanding Officer’s Quarters, the elegant “queen of the Arsenal” that originally was built as a home for the family of the Army military installation commander and then was turned into a landmark restaurant after the Army left in the mid-1960s.

Fire damaged the restaurant, and the building was closed for nearly 20 years until Benicia could repair and renovate the building. The city has been seeking a tenant since early 2010.

Carter Rankin, whose career includes opening and working at the Concord Hilton Hotel for nine years, spoke with Mayor Elizabeth Patterson more than a year ago about the possibility of opening a co-working office business in the historic building at 1 Commandant’s Lane.

“We thought we’d walk in with a lease,” Rankin told the City Council on Tuesday night, when the panel unanimously approved a 66-month lease with an option for a five-year extension.

“It’s a year later, and we’re better for it,” he said.

His Carter’s Biz Café at the Commanding Officer’s Quarters (COQ) will cater to independent company owners who can operate their businesses anywhere in the world with a computer laptop and cell phone.

“People are mobile nowadays,” Rankin said. But what those people don’t have, he told the Council, is a place to sit.

Coffeeshops have become meeting places, he said, “but a professional meeting in a coffeeshop doesn’t work.” That’s spawned the co-working office industry that started in San Francisco as a collaboration of information technology company owners who invested in a single meeting area they could use as needed.

The trend has spread worldwide, Rankin said: Carter’s Biz Café will join such co-working site companies as Capital One Cafés and Regus Headquarters. He said 17 different groups already have said they want to use the COQ as their meeting venue.

Not only will the COQ give Carter’s Biz Café members a place to sit, both inside and outside, he said, it also will offer wi-fi Internet access, concierge services, a quiet place to work, a library and light refreshments such as beverages, salads and sandwiches.

There won’t be a restaurant, Rankin promised; those wanting more complete meals would be encouraged to patronize Benicia’s eateries.

He added that he does plan to incorporate elements of Benicia history into the décor of the COQ.

Rankin told the Council that after meeting Thomas Benet, son of Pulitzer Prize-winner Steven Vincent Benet, whose own father had been an Arsenal commander in the early part of the 20th century, he wanted to name the company library after that family.

Rankin said he won’t be an absentee landlord. “I’ll be there day in and day out,” he told the Council.

Because Rankin needs to build up his new business, the Council gave him a six-month grace period during which he’ll pay no rent. Then, from April 30, 2015, to April 30, 2016, he’ll pay $500 a month, an additional concession to the new company.

Rankin would then pay $3,500 a month through April 2017; $5,900 a month through April 2018; $6,077 through April 2019; and $6,266 through April 2020.

Economic Development Manager Mario Giuliani told the Council that the building, originally a residence, has rooms smaller than conventional office space. That, combined with its location, led city officials to the realization the COQ needed to be rented at below-market rates.

Benicia’s initial concessions to Rankin could pay off for the city later, Giuliani said. The Biz Café may become an incubator for new businesses that eventually need a full-time, conventional storefront.

To meet Benicia’s obligation to the state of California for the grants the city used to restore the COQ to its former glory, Rankin will be required to have at least four open houses at the building. Rankin said he plans even more public events.

Patterson said she sees the opportunity Rankin’s business will offer, adding that it goes beyond places where small, independent companies can meet with clients, brainstorm or have team-building exercises.

“I’m often asked if we can meet with federal people in Benicia. It’s always a problem.” The new role of the Commanding Officer’s Quarters may change that, she said.

“We are honored to take responsibility for the Commanding Officer’s Quarters,” Rankin said. “We feel we’re custodians of this 154-year-old building.”