Walk First Street on a Tuesday evening and the block between Coombs and Franklin doesn't look like the wine corridor it was five years ago. A storefront that used to pour flights now sells hand-poured candles. Another window that once held a tasting bar is strung with terrarium supplies and potting soil. Half a block down, the seven-story shell where Kohl's stood for fifty years is now getting its skin of glass, stone, and metal, the last visible stage before it becomes what developers call Napa's tallest building.
Two things are happening on this street at once, and they're moving at different speeds. The retail mix has finished changing. The infrastructure underneath it hasn't caught up.
The occupancy number nobody's advertising
As of late July 2026, First Street Napa was more than 90 percent leased, according to Laura Sabin of Zapolski Real Estate, the firm that developed and manages the district. With Lucchese Bootmaker expected to open later this year, Sabin said the project will be fully built out for the first time since it broke ground.
That number matters more than it sounds like it should, because it marks the end of a longer shift. Citywide downtown retail vacancy sat at roughly 3.3 percent this spring, and the doorways filling that gap aren't pouring wine. Tasting rooms that once occupied nearly every other suite have been giving way to clothing boutiques, galleries, and cafés, as landlords compete to keep foot traffic steady beyond weekend visitors.
Here's what actually moved in this year:
| Business | Opened | What it offers |
|---|---|---|
| Napa Fragrance | February 2026, 1252 First St. | Luxury home fragrance studio co-founded by Jean-Charles Boisset and Ashley Pengilly, with scent-blending sessions |
| Hopscotch & Bark | June 2026, Suite 335 | Boutique for kids and dogs from local owner Susan Melendez, the same owner behind The Bennington |
| Lucchese Bootmaker | Expected later in 2026 | The signed tenant that closes out the district's build-out |
None of these are tasting rooms. That's not an accident. It's the pattern.
What "full" actually looks like on the ground
The businesses filling First Street aren't just retail, they're built around doing something. Bougie Napa, the candle company founded by Lisa and Larry Anderson, runs its shop out of Suite 332 near Riza Plants and teaches hands-on candle-making classes where visitors pour and label their own scent. A few doors down, Riza Plants owner Alyssa Piombo, who was once called "the plant sommelier" by a customer, runs terrarium workshops for people who can't keep a houseplant alive. Lip Lab, which opened in the district in 2024, still draws a steady stream of bachelorette parties and birthday groups mixing custom lipstick shades. Tonewood & Courage hosts live music some evenings.
This is what the retail mix looks like when it stops being a place to sample Cabernet and starts being a place to spend a Saturday. The shift didn't happen overnight, but the occupancy number is the proof it's finished, at least on the leasing side.
Why the parking hasn't caught up
The corner that's still under scaffolding is the reason the street's other problem hasn't been solved yet.
The site where Kohl's and Mervyns once stood is now a $300 million project from developer 300 Venture Group and CMG Financial, with Build Group as construction partner. As of mid-July 2026, construction was about 40 percent complete, with both seven-story buildings topped out in May and exteriors now being enclosed in glass, stone, and metal. Windows and doors were expected to go in by August, though the hotel and condominium building isn't slated to open until summer 2027.
That project will eventually add a two-level residential parking garage and three surface lots with more than 100 public spaces. It will also add a rideshare drop-off zone near the 9/11 Memorial Garden and a public art installation from Napa artist Gordon Huether. None of that exists yet. What does exist is the parking the project removed to get there.
Napa architect and longtime columnist Chris Craiker put it bluntly in a February 2026 column:
"Spaces can be as rare as hen's teeth, as the old saying goes."
He wasn't exaggerating for effect. The city itself has been scrambling to catch up. On February 3, 2026, the Napa City Council voted to hire Walker Consultants to study potential new parking structures, funded through fees collected from new development. By May, the city held a community open house to evaluate four possible sites for a future garage:
- The Napa Sanitation Pump Station, a decommissioned site the city has been in talks to acquire for years
- Lot X and Lot X West, the former Cinedome site at Pearl and West streets
- Lot A, along 2nd Street between Randolph and Coombs
- County-Owned Lot K, also known as the Sullivans Lot, along 3rd Street between Randolph and Coombs
The city expects to review study findings and pick a preferred site this late summer, which means the decision is happening right around now, months before ground could plausibly break on a replacement.
In the meantime, other city costs are rising too. Building permit, parking, and several other city service fees started increasing in April 2026, with additional increases scheduled every January through 2030.
The restaurant that ties both stories together
If one business captures what this transition actually costs the people living through it, it's Don Perico. The family-owned Mexican restaurant held its spot on First Street for more than thirty years before construction forced it out of its original footprint. Rather than lose the tenant, developers are building it a custom, adjacent space, with a grand reopening targeted for summer 2026.
Don Perico's temporary displacement is a small version of what's happening at district scale. The businesses that make First Street feel like a finished, walkable downtown are already here or about to be. The parking, the drop-off zones, the garage that will eventually replace what construction took away, all of that is still a study, an open house, a site still being narrowed down.
What this means for anyone who actually lives here
If you already live in Napa, the retail question is settled. The street has more places to actually do something than it did two years ago, and by the time Lucchese opens, there won't be an empty storefront left on the block to argue otherwise.
The parking question is not settled, and won't be for at least another year. Plan for a longer walk from wherever you park through the end of 2026. Keep an eye on the city's site selection process if you want a say in where the next garage lands. And if Don Perico's new space feels a little different when it reopens this summer, that's the same construction project responsible for both the crane on the corner and the candle shop two doors down.
First Street didn't quietly become a different kind of downtown. It became one faster than the parking underneath it could keep pace, and that gap is the most useful thing to understand about the block right now.
Our team at Monica Cline-Soulsburg & Senett Dawson spends as much time walking these blocks as we do reviewing comps, because the two are more connected than most market reports let on. If you're curious how downtown Napa's changing character might affect a home search, a sale timeline, or simply what a property near First Street is worth right now, schedule a consultation with our team.
