North Sacramento's venerable Radisson Hotel has a not-so-very-new name.

As of Jan. 1, the sprawling hotel and concert venue off Highway 160 is being called the Woodlake Hotel – a variant of the Woodlake Inn name it sported for nearly two decades before becoming a Radisson affiliate in 1989.

"We're going back to our roots," says Randall King, an exec with the hotel's Seattle-based owner, Dow Hotel Co.

King says his company decided to go independent after concluding that Radisson's strength is attracting individual corporate travelers, not the large business and convention groups that are the local hotel's bread and butter.

"This allows us to put more of our resources into group sales," King says.

Dollar savings from ending the agreement with Minneapolis-based Radisson will pay off in another way as well, he says.

"We'll be able to hire more employees," King says. "It's something to say that in this economy."

In with the new

Speaking of the lodging biz, big changes are coming to Dan Friedlander's eclectic Greens Hotel and entertainment complex on Del Paso Boulevard.

The highly regarded Supper Club restaurant is leaving its space there in coming weeks for an as-yet-undisclosed new location and is being replaced by Mama Kim on the Boulevard, a New Orleans-style restaurant and jazz club to be run by local caterer and food truck operator Kim Scott.

"It will be a California Creole thing," Scott says, adding that her place initially will be open for dinner and live jazz four nights a week, then add lunches at an adjoining cafe space.

One unusual twist: Scott plans "pop-up" culinary events every month or so where a guest chef is brought in to take over the restaurant for a night.

Scott, who is partnering in the venture with friend Phillip Rayburn, says she was drawn to Del Paso after hearing about the latest plans to revitalize the long-struggling commercial strip. Among those initiatives: proposals for a farmers market and renovation of the Grand Theater.

Also new at the Greens: the Alternative Arts Collective, a former Roseville group that's opening a 35-seat theater there in April.

Another performing arts venue, the Big Idea Theatre, already is at the Greens complex.

Bargain hunting

Another piece of Abe Alizadeh's real estate empire has been sold off – this one a 32,000-square-foot office building at 250 Technology Way in Rocklin.

The buyer: TestWorld Inc., a local reseller of high-tech testing equipment that was looking for larger digs.

Its broker, Nick Sadek, says the company looked first to lease but was able to get an SBA loan with payments of about $10,000 monthly – half of its expected lease payments.

"It was cheaper to buy than lease," he says of the $1.25 million deal for a never-occupied building.

Cornish & Carey Commercial brokers Craig Brinitzer and Breanna Hegseth represented the seller, Wells Fargo Bank. Wells was one of the largest lenders to Alizadeh, who is dealing with bankruptcy proceedings and criminal charges in connection with the collapse of his vast restaurant and real estate ventures.

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