CAMARILLO, CA-A private investor has completed the acquisition of Camarillo Plaza in Ventura County for $17.7 million in a bankruptcy sale, GlobeSt.com learns in this exclusive story. The transaction took nearly two years to complete due to loan restrictions, which Colliers International's EVP Tom Lagos and associate VP El Warner were able to avoid.

“Initially, every bidder had to assume the existing loan, which made it very prohibitive for people to step up and place their bid and then go through the challenge of obtaining a CMBS loan,” Lagos, who represented the center in the transaction, tells GlobeSt.com. The CMBS loan was well above market rate, at about 6.2% rate when current rates are closer to 4.5%, which devalued the property.

After several years of attempting to sell the building with these loan restrictions, Lagos teamed with a lender to have the restrictions removed. “We had a connection with the representative of the lender, who decided to work with us,” says Lagos. “At the end of the day, it was good for them too because they got a portion of their fees back and they didn't have to foreclose on anyone.”

Despite the bankruptcy issue, the property drew significant attention from investors and had 20 offers. The 74,072-square-foot property was 95% leased at the time of the sale and, overall, was nicely maintained. ““From a financial perspective, the buyer got a great deal because of the fact that these are really, really low rents,” says Lagos, adding that development is difficult in Camarillo so there will be limited future competition for the center.

Shopping center development may be limited in Ventura County, but is L.A. County, center development is starting to pick up. This morning, GlobeSt.com reported that construction has begun on the Point, an $80 million shopping center development in the South Bay, and last month, the Juanita Tate Marketplace broke ground in South Los Angeles, which will house national grocery and eateries as well as regional retail shops.

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Kelsi Maree Borland

Kelsi Maree Borland is a freelance journalist and magazine writer based in Los Angeles, California. For more than 5 years, she has extensively reported on the commercial real estate industry, covering major deals across all commercial asset classes, investment strategy and capital markets trends, market commentary, economic trends and new technologies disrupting and revolutionizing the industry. Her work appears daily on GlobeSt.com and regularly in Real Estate Forum Magazine. As a magazine writer, she covers lifestyle and travel trends. Her work has appeared in Angeleno, Los Angeles Magazine, Travel and Leisure and more.

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