Simi Center to be Auctioned

More than 100 potential buyers have inquired about Belwood Center, a Simi Valley neighborhood shopping center that will be among the properties offered for sale by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in a nationwide auction next Tuesday and Wednesday.

The 80,000-square-foot center houses an Alpha Beta market and a Sav-On Express drugstore, but has a vacancy rate of 41%, said the lead broker on the property, Craig Lane of the Sherman Oaks office of Grubb & Ellis Co.

“Still, it’s an attractive property with a lot of potential,” he said. The center, in the 4300 block of Alamo Street, has been appraised at between $4.6 million and $7.2 million, Lane added. He said investors from as far away as Minnesota, Texas and Seattle have expressed interest in Belwood, which was built in 1965 and went through a major renovation in the late 1980s.

Belwood’s former owners ran into trouble when they went heavily into debt to pay for the renovation, Lane said. “With leases down due to the recession, they couldn’t keep up with their payments,” he said.

Grubb & Ellis and Ross-Dove Co., an auction firm, will offer more than 200 troubled commercial and residential properties,valued at a total of as much as $750 million in the auction. Belwood is scheduled to go on the block on the second day, Wednesday.

The event will be staged in Dallas with satellite hookups in Los Angeles, Boston and Miami. The Los Angeles location is at the Hyatt hotel on Century Boulevard near Los Angeles International Airport.

To bid on any of the properties being auctioned, participants must have a certified or cashier’s check for $50,000.