Office Center Agent Tells Plan for Drawing Tenants

The newly named leasing agent for problem-plagued North Coast Executive Center in Oxnard hopes to attract tenants by creating office suites as small as 1,200 square feet.

The strategy will be carried out even though the building has been placed on the auction block, said Thad W. Seligman, senior vice president and district manager in Oxnard for Grubb & Ellis Commercial Real Estate Services.

Seligman said an architectural firm is designing the suites, which will range up to 2,500 square feet and that they should be completed around Labor Day.

“We hope to attract tenants of all sizes, including firms needing temporary offices while their permanent space is being built out,” Seligman said.

Only 40% of the six-story, 110,000-square-foot North Coast building is currently leased, Seligman said. The structure, whose green-glass facade has become a landmark near the Ventura Freeway, was completed in 1991.

North Coast is one of 80 commercial properties in 20 states that will be auctioned by a Grubb & Ellis operation on May 21.

The building, at 1000 Town Center Drive, is owned by NCEC Realty, a subsidiary of Citicorp, which financed most of its $17-million construction cost. NCEC assumed ownership when the developers, River Edge Development Co. of Solvang and a unit of Told Corp. of Oxnard, were faced with possible foreclosure.

Thus far, North Coast Executive Center is the only building to have been completed in Town Center, a projected $500-million development envisioned as the largest commercial real estate project in Ventura County history.