Cary & Associates Builders, Inc.

Scope Of Work

That vexing, 70-foot stretch of granite, with its sparse, minuscule and razor-sharp holds, nearly derailed the Santa Rosa native’s pioneering 2015 ascent of the Dawn Wall with his climbing partner, Tommy Caldwell. In the end, both solved Pitch 15, and went on to complete what many consider the most challenging climb on the planet. And then they moved on with their lives.

Jorgeson married Jacqui Becker, who was there to greet him at the summit of El Cap. They bought a house in Santa Rosa’s Bennett Valley neighborhood, where they live with their 2-year-old son, Edsel. Now 36, Jorgeson is an Adidas-sponsored motivational speaker whose nonprofit, 1Climb, puts up climbing walls in Boys & Girls clubs across America.

But his most ambitious, highest-profile post-Dawn Wall project is this 55-foot-high, 23,000-square-foot structure now rising beside Highway 101, just south of the Highway 12 interchange. When it’s completed, Session Climbing’s appeal, Jorgeson thinks, will stretch well beyond the community of hard core climbers.

“We’re now underneath where the mezzanine will be,” he told a visitor to the site. Jorgeson was standing in the middle of what will be the central lounge, or, as he put it, “the heartbeat” of the building, a place for people to sip a beverage, nosh on “small bites,”and hang out with friends when they aren’t climbing.

The purpose of Session isn’t just exercise, said his business partner, Mike Shaffer, who has climbed with Jorgeson for two decades, and is a professor of English at Santa Rosa Junior College. “It’s climbing and fitness as part of something larger, more well-rounded: a life lived well.”

Conceived by Jorgeson and Shaffer in 2016, the project nearly died 13 months ago. With the COVID-19 pandemic in its early stages, Session Climbing’s lead investor, Kenwood Investments, pulled out of the deal, a decision Jorgeson described as “totally understandable.”

The CEO of Kenwood Investments, Darius Anderson, is also managing member of Sonoma Media Investments, which owns The Press Democrat and other regional multimedia publications. Anderson confirmed that with the onset of the pandemic he decided to back out of the project.

Whether it was finding the right property, wrangling permits from the city or arranging financing, Jorgeson and Shaffer already had overcome plenty of obstacles.

“And I always thought, welp, it might take a little longer, but we’re still gonna do it,” Jorgeson said. “But when COVID hit, that was the first time I actually became resigned to the fact that this might not happen.”

It is happening because Brad Baker came to the rescue. The chief executive of SOMO Living, which owns and operates SOMO Village in Rohnert Park, Baker already was involved with Session Climbing. In the early stages of the project, Baker agreed to buy the tract on South A Street, which cost around $1 million, and lease it back to Jorgeson and Shaffer.

In addition to being a natural fit with SOMO Living, and the active, healthy lifestyle it embraces, Session Climbing had a personal appeal to Baker. After moving to Sonoma County in the late 19th century, he said, his family once owned the land on which the building sits, a few blocks north of the Baker Avenue overpass on Highway 101.