The housing downturn made it seem as though Folsom city officials would have to wait a long while before seeing their vision for new residences south of Highway 50 come to fruition.

Au contraire. David Miller, the city's community development director, said Wednesday that there could be houses on the property as early as 2014.

His pronouncement came after El Dorado Hills' Westland Capital Partners announced it had purchased the 960-acre Mangini Ranch property from a partnership controlled by developer Angelo K. Tsakopoulos.

Of the acquisition, Miller said, "It shows that the economy has turned to the point that even with the cost of new development, the demand is high enough for them to close on the property and move forward."

Westland Capital was born in February 2011 when real estate veterans John Hagenbuch, Bill Bunce, John Telischak and Rob Aragon got together to buy land in select Western markets. The partners bought 110 acres in Roseville earlier this year.

Westland Capital is entitled to build nearly 4,000 residential units on the Mangini Ranch, a part of the vast acreage annexed by Folsom earlier this year.

Paint by the numbers

If you need a few gallons of paint to finish a DIY project, you might want to buy them today. Manufacturers will be raising prices Friday to fund a new statewide recycling program.

Manufacturers have set up a nonprofit called PaintCare to take over the recycling process long run by government agencies. They've been been working with the state Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery over the past five years, and a new law, AB 1343, made the handover effective on Friday.

"The paint industry … said this makes sense because … these are our products and we should be the ones managing them," said Marjaneh Zarrehparvar, executive director of PaintCare, "but it also makes sense in that we would rather be a part of the solution and have the same kind of program in every state rather than have the risk of California passing one kind of a law, Oregon passing another law, Florida passing a third law. Then the paint industry would have to comply with different types of waste management laws in every state."

Local governments no longer wanted the cost of running the programs. In many cases, PaintCare will pay government facilities to keep running recovery programs. Zarrehparvar expects to have 700 or more drop-off sites as the program matures, but she's starting with 300. To find a location, go to www.paintcare.org, click on the California tab and put in your ZIP code.

Retail paint prices will rise Friday by 35 cents for half-pints to gallons, 75 cents for gallons and $1.60 for anything over that.

Wing dinger in Natomas

It's going to be a wingding of a battle when Buffalo Wild Wings opens its new restaurant in Natomas in December. The sports bar will be located at 3600 N. Freeway Blvd.

You might know the address better as the former Center Court opened and closed by Chris Webber. The thing is, the location is just a few basketball courts away from WingStop and Hooters locations.

Analyst Nick Setyan of Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles predicts that Minneapolis-based Buffalo Wild Wings will lead this flock.

"There's a pretty strong trend in wings overall. It's probably one of the fastest-growing categories in the restaurant space," he said.

Slightly more than 60 percent of the chain's revenue comes from wings and alcohol, Setyan said, and the margins on both these products are high.

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