The company is run by Bay Area entrepreneur Rich Rifkin, who has put more than $1 million of his own money into the venture and is now in the midst of a capital raise. Its corporate headquarters address is 6694 Amador Plaza Rd. The address of its flagship store will be 6705 Amador Plaza Rd. Rifkin tells GlobeSt.com that both sites from the same landlord, Robert Enea, who was not immediately available Tuesday afternoon for comment.

"Without us being capitalized he has given us a lease on a prime, 30,000-square-foot, free-standing, high-traffic, high-visibility location, and now he's given us a 10,000-square-foot location across the street for our headquarters," Rifkin says. "He's been really good."

Rifkin says New Home will be the first to offer green building materials for contractors and homeowners at the same price and convenience as non-green stores like Home Depot and Lowe`s. New Home also will offer extensive in-store and online education for consumers as well as social networking for contractors.

"Now landlords are starting to call us because they like what we are doing," says Rifkin, who works with Jay Schaffer of Colton Commercial. "One landlord has offered us $1.5 million in TIs on a 45,000-square-foot building."

New Home`s flagship store is scheduled to open in January 2010. The company plans to open 25 stores throughout California, 10 in the San Francisco Bay Area, in vacant class A retail locations for their new hybrid business model of green showrooms and environmental learning centers. Additional showroom locations in the Bay Area likely will include locations close to a Home Depot or Lowe's locations in San Francisco, Daly City, Burlingame, Santa Clara, San Jose, Fremont, Emeryville, and Sacramento.

Rifkin says he invested close to $700,000 into a 13,000-square-foot storefront in San Rafael but decided ultimately to walk away from the investment in favor of the Dublin location. Rifkin says he is close to securing a funding round of between $5 million and $20 million "from a big investment banking firm" such that it will be able to stay on track to open its second and third locations in the Bay Area by mid-2010.