Executive Center Bids Fail

North Coast Executive Center, the Oxnard office building with a curved, green-glass facade, failed to attract a successful bidder at a nationwide auction of commercial real estate.

The highest bid made Thursday for the six-story structure adjoining the Ventura Freeway was $6.5 million, according to a source at Grubb & Ellis Commercial Real Estate Services, the building’s leasing agent and an organizer of the auction. The bid was turned down by the building’s owner, NCEC Realty, a subsidiary of Citicorp, the source said.

The 110,000-square-foot North Coast building was completed in 1991 at an estimated cost of $17 million. Only 35% of its space is leased.

Bidding for the property, at 1000 Town Center Drive, opened at $4 million and increased in increments of $250,000, the source said. North Coast was one of 80 commercial properties offered at the auction.

A Grubb & Ellis spokeswoman said the real estate firm will continue as the building’s leasing agent, an arrangement that started in April. NCEC assumed ownership when the developers were faced with possible foreclosure.

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