CT Realty Acquires Ventura Properties

An Orange County investment firm said Thursday that it purchased a large portfolio of Ventura County real estate owned by the family of the late Martin V. “Bud” Smith, one of the county’s largest and most influential developers, for $57 million.

The 15 properties purchased by Newport Beach-based CT Realty Corp. in partnership with Messenger/Sandpiper Cos. include the Wagon Wheel Plaza shopping center in Oxnard and the nearby 403,7509-square-foot Wagon Wheel Industrial Park, which includes the historic Wagon Wheel Inn.

The sale also involved a few hundred acres of farmland in Oxnard and Santa Maria as well as numerous other retail, industrial, warehouse and self-storage properties. The properties were sold by the Martin V. and Martha K. Smith Trust of Oxnard.

The properties are in a rapidly growing area, and many of the older sites are ripe for redevelopment, said Robert M. Campbell, president of CT Realty.

Campbell said the company’s redevelopment efforts would focus on the Wagon Wheel properties -- located amid new retail and residential properties -- in addition to the Carriage Square Shopping Center, a 181,000-square-foot retail complex on Oxnard Boulevard.

The 15 properties were part of what once was a much larger real estate portfolio developed by Smith, who started his real estate career after World War II by buying 50 acres of surplus military property and building the Wagon Wheel Restaurant & Motel.

His holdings included a 21-story office building in Oxnard, eight hotels, more than 1,000 apartment units and several restaurants. Most of those properties were sold in the mid-1990s.

Smith died in November 2001 at age 85 from complications related to Parkinson’s disease.

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Times staff writer Cecilia Rasmussen contributed to this report.