Council OKs Sale of Chamber Building

The City Council has signed off on a plan that would allow the Chamber of Commerce to sell its building on Hillcrest Drive.

In a unanimous vote late Tuesday, the council agreed to permanently waive an old deed restriction on the property that said the building should revert to residential use if it ever left the chamber’s ownership.

The vote cleared the way for the building to be sold to retired building contractor Robert Barker, a Thousand Oaks resident, for $850,000. The Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce would still rent space in the building.

The purchase also leaves the chamber, which was suffering financial troubles, debt-free.

In March, the City Council voted to buy the chamber building--by paying off $500,000 remaining on the mortgage--and maybe lease it back to the business organization.

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

Before the city’s purchase became final, Barker came forward. Even though the building is zoned for public use only, he volunteered to purchase it.

At Tuesday’s meeting, a grateful Larry Carignan, the chamber’s president-elect, said the purchase would be a winning situation for the business booster group, the buyer, the city and the chamber’s mortgage bank.