Centex Buys Land, but Victorian Camarillo House Will Stand

For years, the historic Camarillo House has stood by itself on a piece of land off Mission Boulevard in Camarillo--an isolated landmark on the 67-acre Camarillo Ranch located alongside the Ventura Freeway.

But the Victorian home, built in 1892, won’t be lonely much longer.

Centex Industrial Development, a division of Centex Corp. of Dallas, has purchased the ranch--the last remaining asset of the Carmen Camarillo Jones Estate--with plans to build a business park.

Grading is expected to begin in June, with the first tenant, Diamondback Bicycles of Camarillo, relocating its headquarters to the location by the end of the year.

Zephyr Development Co. of Westlake Village is a partner in the development.

“We operate as partners, although ownership of the property is 100% Centex Development,” said Bob Goetsch, president of Zephyr. “We’ve identified 18 lots in the subdivision. One of those lots will remain the Camarillo home.”

The Camarillo City Council approved the overall property for industrial use in early April. As a condition of the approval, the council required the new owners to donate the eight-room home erected by city founder Adolfo Camarillo, its barn and the remainder of the home’s 4.4-acre parcel to the city. The transfer is scheduled for August.

Goetsch said about 15 companies ultimately will move in alongside the existing house, occupying close to 1 million square feet of space in the business park.

“It will be light-industrial companies, with some white-collar staff,” Goetsch said.

“We will probably have some high-tech and research and development companies that already are in Camarillo,” he said. “They will have the ability to expand into a facility that really will be built for their needs. We’re reasonably priced--real estate prices haven’t gone up to where they were in the mid-1980s--and [the businesses] are ones that don’t want to move outside of Camarillo.”

Because Centex Corp. is a Fortune 500 company, Goetsch said that is also a draw. Originally, the ranch property was to be purchased by Dallas-based Vista Development Co., which subsequently was purchased by Centex.

In addition to the ranch development, Zephyr and Centex also are working on an industrial development within the Northfield Business Park, part of the Pacific Commerce Center at Rice Avenue and 5th Street in Oxnard.

The first phase of the speculative project will house three buildings of 39,000, 49,000 and 92,000 square feet, with grading expected to begin this week.

Capital Commercial Real Estate, with offices in Westlake Village, Simi Valley and Oxnard, is the marketing representative on both the Oxnard and Camarillo developments.