City of Napa lures wine-country tourists
NAPA, California - Wine country has long been a premier California tourist destination, its rolling hills of vineyards, wineries and tasting rooms attracting upscale travelers and lots of repeat visitors.
Most of them have passed up this city of nearly 75,000 for the “up-valley” charms of Calistoga, St. Helena and Yountville. There wasn’t much reason to put Napa on a Napa Valley itinerary. Downtown business languished because frequent floods inundated merchants.
“We were so overlooked, so bypassed by the Napa Valley tourist,” says Daniel Dawson, owner of Back Room Wines, a downtown wine shop. “There was really bad morale and a can’t-win attitude about downtown Napa.”
… Housing will be tight with an influx of tourism workers, Kahn says. Napa’s median home price in June was $550,000, and the inventory of available apartments and affordable houses is small. Traffic could worsen with more workers commuting to Napa.
“We’re trying to do as much affordable housing as we can,” Walker says. “City Council in the past had policies about new hotels contributing to housing or having on-site housing for workers, but that has proved very difficult.”