Lenders in southern California are evaluating an undisclosed
number of bids for the vacant 42,000-square-foot condo-retail
building they took over from the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association
earlier this year, a spokesperson said.
Lenders in southern California are evaluating an undisclosed number of bids for the vacant 42,000-square-foot condo-retail building they took over from the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association earlier this year, a spokesperson said.
“We are still evaluating the bids, and it is not appropriate to discuss them at this time,” wrote Pacific Capital Bancorp Executive Vice President Debbie Whiteley in an e-mail Wednesday, one day after the Santa Barbara-based bank’s silent, highly secure auction-by-mail ended. Pacific Capital operates South Valley National Bank, which spent $8.8 million financing the construction of the repossessed building.
Late last month, Mark Sanchez, a commercial real estate professional and vice president of Colliers International’s Gilroy branch, which is listing the property, said he had received plenty of offers from mostly individuals – he just didn’t know what they said. They were to remain sealed until Sept. 1.
South Valley National Bank Senior Vice President Kurt Michielssen has declined to comment, and neither he nor Sanchez have said how much the bank wants for the entire building. The lender was not accepting offers that were not for the entire building, which is three floors and includes 24 condos and a first-floor retail and office space.
To get an idea of how much the building cost, the Garlic Festival Association lost more than $1 million developing its commercial-residential project while the housing market crumbled. Last October, after the condos spent five months on the market without a single offer, the festival board decided to stop making payments on the $8.8 million construction loan it took out with its partner, Pleasant Valley Development Group. The project was built by Tanglewood Construction, whose president, Randy Moen, also heads Pleasant Valley.
The spacious terracotta building at the corner of Monterey and Lewis streets has sat vacant since then, and the Garlic Festival Association moved back into its old office across the street in April.
Home sales throughout the county in June rose 28.5 percent, or 464 units, over the same month last year, but the average price was 27-percent lower over the same period, at $445,000, according to MDA DataQuick Information Systems. In Gilroy, the average condo and townhouse in June sold for $196,600, according to the Santa Clara County Association of Realtors.
