6 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY SEPTEMBER 18-24, 2025 www.montereycountynow.com NEWS The long dormant office building at 245 Washington St. in Monterey, right by the wharf parking lot entrance, has quietly come back to life in the past few weeks. It marks the beginning of something new: a hub for recovery, whether from pain, addiction or both. In May, Pacific Rehabilitation & Pain, which operates clinics in Monterey and Salinas, acquired the building for $2.15 million. In August, it opened its Recovery Center on the waterfront with offices for its own doctors, but also offices for other doctors and nonprofits. One of those nonprofits is Sun Street Centers, which is still moving in. Another is Central Coast Overdose Prevention, which was founded in 2020 and now has its first brick-and-mortar location. Two months ago, CCODP had just two doctors on staff—Casey Grover and Reb Close, the husbandand-wife doctors who founded it—but since then, they’ve hired three more. A few years ago, Grover and Close, who both worked in the emergency room at CHOMP, approached Dr. Salar Deldar, a CHOMP physician who founded Pacific Rehabilitation & Pain, about the logistics of starting a practice. That led Deldar to offer them space in his clinic on Cass Street in Monterey for them to work in. When Deldar saw the building go up for sale earlier this year, a vision began to take shape. “I just thought, ‘We need to make this happen,’” he says. What “this” is, Deldar says, is a “synergistic hub” of specialists who work with a lot of the same patients in different capacities. “It’s the coolest thing, it just kept developing,” he says. He adds that if it’s a feel-good story now, “It’s only going to feel better with time.” Healing Hub A long-vacant building on Monterey’s waterfront has a new owner and a new life. By David Schmalz Under pleasant skies on Saturday, Sept. 13 a group of some 125 people dined around long tables at the Rancho Carmelo vineyards, sipping local wines, returning for second helpings of paella and chatting casually. Among them were several Carmel Valley winemakers, sharing their bottles. “It felt like a hometown [event],” says Walter Georis, who opened one of the village’s first tasting rooms some three decades ago. “It was a lovely day.” The afternoon was also a test. With a group of winemakers preparing to launch an organization dedicated to promoting Carmel Valley Village’s tasting rooms, the questions at hand were what type of event shares the right vibe and could they pull it off. “The purpose is to bring the tasting rooms together, to highlight the tasting rooms and bring people to the valley,” Georis says the next afternoon. “Yesterday gave us a really good sense.” Carmel Valley Uncorked is a response to both the international decline in demand for wine—which has the potential of hitting small producers harder than the corporate brands—as well as the perception that even many local residents tend to overlook Carmel Valley Village. “A lot of times people say, ‘I didn’t know,’” says Kathy Baker of Rombi Wines. “Well, shame on us. We don’t promote as a group. We thought it was about time.” Baker and the Georises, along with six others with tasting rooms in the community, put together the event. And they did so with a balance in mind. Georis recalls after opening his spot near the Bernardus tasting room, event planners began contacting him. He was fine hosting parties, but did not want tour buses idling outside. Plans for Carmel Valley Uncorked are still in the early stages—they own a domain name, but have yet to set up a bank account—but both Baker and Georis foresee no more than three events a year, each with a limited number of guests. “We’re thinking about how to do this and still keep control of the vibe and the sanity,” Georis says. As envisioned, the organization would be hyper-local, promoting only the tasting rooms within village boundaries. Baker anticipates launching activities, which would include advertising in local publications, sometime in 2026. She also hopes that all 20 tasting rooms participate. “We don’t have a chamber of commerce,” she adds. “We want to bring the wine community in the village together.” Baker stresses that the concept is not in response to the demise of the Monterey County Vintners and Growers Association, which provided marketing support and lobbying for wineries across the county before the board voted to end operations in August. Carmel Valley’s small producers simply face different challenges than Carmel or River Road tasting rooms. With an organization that promotes local events while embracing the community vibe, Georis adds that “there is a lot of potential.” The test gathering on Sept. 13 drew an appreciative group. Proceeds benefited the Carmel Valley Improvement Committee. A pleased Baker couldn’t resist the obvious. “I think everybody is in support,” she says. “It takes a village.” From left to right, Salvatore Rombi and Kathy Baker of Rombi Wines with Sylvia and Walter Georis outside the Georis tasting room in Carmel Valley Village. Village People Carmel Valley winemakers look to form an organization to support its wine community. By Dave Faries The waterfront building was a former urgent care clinic. It will now house several groups that work together treating patients with addiction or pain issues, or both. “We want to bring the wine community together.” DANIEL DREIFUSS DANIEL DREIFUSS
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