Resident Offers to Buy Chamber’s Building

A week after the City Council voted to purchase the Chamber of Commerce’s headquarters because the group was behind on mortgage payments, an anonymous Thousand Oaks resident agreed to buy the building instead.

As part of an agreement announced Tuesday, the purchaser would be obligated to lease the two-story building back to the Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce on favorable terms. Were the chamber to leave, or the building to be sold, it would remain earmarked for public--not commercial--purposes.

“This is like a gift from God,” said Larry Carignan, the chamber’s president-elect. “It was just dropped from heaven.”

The proposed purchaser, a 30-year city resident who is not a chamber member, made his offer after seeing a televised meeting at which City Council members agreed to pay off the $500,000 remaining on the mortgage for the building at 625 W. Hillcrest Drive.

At that meeting, elected leaders left open the possibility the building could be sold, rented to others or used for city functions.

Because the city had co-signed the chamber’s building loan, it had the option of buying the building if the chamber ever fell more than 120 days behind in payments--which it has.

The deal announced Tuesday would ensure that the debt-strapped chamber would have a permanent home and that the city would not have to purchase the building. However, the City Council must still approve the sale.

“This would put us in excellent financial standing,” Carignan said. “We would be all but debt-free with money in the bank.”

Council members appear to favor the deal. “It’s the best thing that could have happened for them,” said Mayor Mike Markey.

Until the chamber members vote on the agreement May 1, Carignan declined to detail the price offered for the building or the proposed lease rates for the chamber, which was sent into debt by the recession and declining membership.

However, the purchaser did deposit a nonrefundable $50,000 in Los Robles Bank to pay off what the chamber owes in delinquent mortgage payments and what it would have to pay through September, when escrow is expected to close.

Linda Parks, the only council member to vote against buying the chamber building last week, said she was “really delighted for the chamber.” She had worried that the city would be purchasing a building it didn’t need to help the organization.

“I’m excited about this,” Parks said. “I think it gets us out of the sticky situation of the separation of private industry from public government.”

The city had begun the process of buying out the chamber’s mortgage before the white knight came along, said Finance Director Bob Biery. He said he had already checked with the bank to confirm the exact amount left on the mortgage but had not yet filled out the paperwork required for the city to cut a check.