Wanted: one restaurant tenant for quirky midtown space. Must offer incredible food. Free rent for a year.

That's essentially the pitch by businessman Aaron Zeff for a tiny building adjoining his Harv's Metro Car Wash at 19th and L streets in midtown Sacramento.

Zeff says he tried to find a paying tenant for the humble building with a roll-up door that's currently used for auto window tinting.

There's been interest in the tiny space, he says. But mostly from "underqualified, undercapitalized local yokels."

So Zeff, who's on a mission to raise Sacramento's cool quotient, is putting in a kitchen and other tenant improvements, then will donate the space for one year.

But only to the right tenant – one with "an amazing concept" that will draw ravenous hordes and a loyal following.

"Other cities all have a place where there's a line of people waiting to get in," he says. "Downtown (and midtown) don't have that."

The space is only 650 square feet, but there's room for plenty of outdoor seating, says real estate broker Susanne Westley. And, she says, the building "looks like it always should have been a restaurant."

Zeff, who's president of the Midtown Business Association, says his main motivation is adding more cosmopolitan attractions to midtown. But he acknowledges there's a little self-interest at work, too.

Restaurant-goers, he says, just might "get a car wash while they're there."

High (tech) anxiety

There's likely some nervousness at Roseville's NEC Electronics facility, where a pending merger will mean a company name change and a new chain of command.

Will it also result in more job cuts?

"It's too early to tell," says NEC spokeswoman Denise Iwata.

She says a number of issues, including employment levels, are still being worked out ahead of NEC's merger with another Japanese semiconductor maker, Renesas Technology Corp. Things will be clearer early next year when the deal is expected to be approved by shareholders and the resulting company – Renesas Electronics Corp. – is established.

But there's some reason to be optimistic if you're one of the 650 or so NEC employees remaining in Roseville.

The company has seen "an uptick in demand" for its primary line of semiconductors used in cars and consumer products, Iwata says.

Does Renesas have any similar lines in production that might make the Roseville operation expendable?

"Not in the U.S.," she says.

Moving out

Faced with declining business, some engineering firms are closing their Sacramento offices and consolidating in the suburbs.

In just the past few weeks alone, Morton & Pitalo, MacKay & Somps and Psomas have made that move.

It's not a knock on Sacramento, company execs say. The outlying locations just turned out to be a better fit.

In fact, MacKay & Somps was set to sublease its Roseville site and move those employees to Sacramento, says company President Jim Ray. Instead, it found a tenant to take over the Sacramento site and consolidated operations in Roseville.

"It was bittersweet to leave a place where I've worked for 25 years," Ray says. But necessary, due to a construction industry slowdown that's left the firm with fewer than half of the 100 employees it had several years ago.

It was a similar situation for Morton & Pitalo, which moved its Sacramento staff to Folsom, and for Psomas, which relocated its South Natomas employees to the company's Roseville office.

Psomas regional manager Paul Enneking says the consolidation had a simple motivation: The private sector work that sustained the firm for years "is literally gone."

Reach Bob Shallit at (916) 321-1049. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/shallit.

Reach Bob Shallit at (916) 321-1049. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/shallit.