La Borgata center negotiating with new stores

It's not exactly coming apart stone-by-stone but the grand concept for La Borgata, the Tuscan village-style shopping center in El Dorado Hills, has lost one of its crown jewels with the closure of the La Borgata Spa, its first major tenant.Also recently gone are the smaller Solare Tanning Resort, The Whitney Group real estate consultancy and Café Nostra coffee shop. Long vacant has been the large space that once housed a French country home goods store. Still based at the center are Bank of America, Sienna and Sky Sushi restaurants and various attorneys and financial consultants."There's traffic at La Borgata, but the big traffic going in and out is just the front two shops, really, the bank and Sienna, so it's hard for the other stores," said Susan FaGalde of El Dorado Hills. "What's left as a store front is the sushi place."The whole shopping center was like the premier upscale development and held so much hope," she said. "I don't know if it's a matter of location or the developer didn't do enough proper promotion. It's sad, just sad, what's happened there."A more positive picture is painted by Karen Brigg, a senior vice president at Eugene Burger Management Company of Auburn, leasing agent for La Borgata. "We're starting to see a little trend of the market picking up in the commercial space. We have two possible office spaces we're negotiating leases with right now," she said.Opening in November is The Wine Cellar Wine & Cheese Bar in the former Café Nostra space, an offshoot of a store of the same name on Sutter Street in Folsom. Moving in now is Prudential Realty. "We're negotiating the leases for two other individuals coming," Brigg said."A couple of people have looked at the French country store space but they're not able to even come close to the rental rate we're asking, but I do have somebody already interested in the spa space for use as a spa," she noted.Part of La Borgata's leasing problems began at the beginning when tenants included a baby store, a men's clothing store, a comfort shoe store, retail outlets that need heavy traffic, like at a mall, Brigg indicated.A major lifeline was tossed to the center when it booked Sienna restaurant. "They doing great and I think it's only going to grow and expand. That's going to be very positive for them and very positive for La Borgata because that was a hard hit we took when Masque closed," she said. Masque was a highly promoted upscale restaurant that folded and whose space Sienna occupied."We're fine, doing good," said an employee at Sky Sushi. Similarly optimistic is Karoline Platt, co-owner of Sienna with her husband, Mark. Since opening last February, "things have been really good," she said. "Our holiday bookings are very strong. We're almost totally booked." Business is doing so well, the Platts are considering opening a second location."La Borgata is really a destination center," commented Brigg. "The Wine Cellar is a perfect fit. We'd like to see maybe a bakery go in and shops of that sort so the center actually becomes what it should have been or was intended to be and that's a town center that services El Dorado Hills."