Sale of Pacific Savings Property Expected Soon : Negotiations: Former headquarters of defunct S&L; may fetch more than $10 million. Auto dealer Nick Shammas is among bidders in competition for the Costa Mesa building.

Federal thrift regulators are expected to sell the stylish former headquarters of the defunct Pacific Savings Bank, perhaps as early as today, for more than $10 million, according to several sources.

Among a few select bidders negotiating Thursday with the Resolution Trust Corp. for the Spanish-colonial-style office building was Nick Shammas of Los Angeles, who owns eight automobile dealerships and numerous office and other real estate properties in downtown Los Angeles and Orange County.

Meanwhile, in a separate transaction, Irvine developer Lee Sammis Associates said Thursday that it has agreed to buy 2 square miles of prime developable land in fast-growing southwest Broward County, Fla., from the RTC. The agency, which manages and liquidates failed savings and loans, said the price would be revealed at the closing, which is several months away.

The three-story Pacific Savings headquarters, with its distinctive large bell tower, was built in 1982 as the cornerstone for redevelopment of downtown Costa Mesa. The massive structure at Newport Boulevard and 19th Street garnered a number of architectural awards as well.

The thrift also built the nearby Courtyards shopping center complex in a Spanish motif to complement its headquarters building and revitalize the city’s oldest retail shopping district.

The RTC’s West Coast office, which is based in the building, has been handling the sale negotiations and is “very near” to reaching a deal, said Micah Leslie, head of sales for the agency’s local office.

“We may have a successful candidate by (this) afternoon,” he said.

Leslie said a “multitude” of bidders had been narrowed to a few, but he would not provide further details.

Shammas acknowledged that he is one of several bidders. Two other sources close to the deal said the purchase price would probably be $10 million to $13 million.

The building has 116,000 square feet of rentable space. Besides the RTC, the other tenants are the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce and the Turnip Rose Co., a catering firm in Orange that has a 400-seat banquet room on the ground floor.

The RTC, which has about 350 employees in the Costa Mesa office, is expected to move by the end of the year to a Koll Co. high-rise.

Pacific Savings took advantage of liberal investment powers in the early 1980s to invest in real estate projects in several states. It began losing millions of dollars, mainly from its investments in economically depressed Texas and other Southwest states.

Regulators installed new management in June, 1987, and eventually took over the institution in February, 1989. The RTC sold the S&L; to a Toronto firm, which merged it into its Pacific First Savings Bank subsidiary.

In the RTC transaction with Lee Sammis Associates, the Irvine developer picked up prime land next to the Dade County border about 20 minutes north of Miami. The property is unusual in that it includes all the property around a major intersection of Interstate 75.

Lee Sammis, the founder of the Sammis Co., said the planned community of 1,276 acres already has most of the local government approval it needs for construction of residential, office, commercial and industrial buildings.

The property was owned by a subsidiary of CenTrust Savings Bank in Miami, which regulators seized last year.