GTE Building Purchase Would Bring 650 Jobs to Oxnard

Thousand Oaks-based GTE California is on the verge of purchasing the never-used Chevron USA building in northeast Oxnard and installing a customer-service center that would bring 650 jobs to the Oxnard Plain.

GTE officials are expected to decide within two weeks whether the center will be in the 115,000-square-foot Chevron structure or the San Bernardino-Riverside area.

But Oxnard is the clear favorite, GTE officials report.

“Oxnard’s chances look good and, if we choose that city, we’ll definitely be using that building,” said Mike Raydo, GTE’s public affairs manager. “We also like that location because it’s much closer than the competing area to our offices in Thousand Oaks. And there’s an excellent pool of potential employees in Ventura County.”

Mike Marcy, a Chevron spokesman, confirmed that the sale to GTE is imminent. “It’s a matter of crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s,” he said. “We’re very excited, especially in view of the jobs and economic benefits this would bring to Ventura County.”

GTE is tentatively planning to transfer 250 of its employees to the new center, and to hire 400 new workers to staff the unit. The facility would consolidate work done at a number of GTE offices throughout Southern California.

It would process new service installations, handle customer inquiries and dispatch service trucks from other locations.

Raydo said a price has already been agreed upon for the Chevron structure, but he and Marcy declined to disclose the amount. “All I can say is that it’s a lot less than Chevron paid to build it,” Raydo said.

The building at Rice Avenue and Gonzales Road was completed in 1990 at a cost of $15 million. Chevron had planned to base its Southern California regional headquarters there, but later decided to move most of its offices to Bakersfield.

The concrete-and-steel structure, surrounded by spacious lawns, has stood vacant since its completion.

It is located in a 60-acre development that borders the Ventura Freeway.