No Acceptable Bids Made for City’s Empty Building

• Some Fear Location Could Become a Recession White Elephant

BY BILL KOENEKER

The deadline for submitting a proposal for leasing out the city-owned building formerly occupied by Coldwell Banker has been extended until April 30, according to municipal officials.
The city has received several responses to its Request for Proposals, but none of them met the city’s criteria, according to Reva Feldman, who is the municipality’s administrative services director, and is handling the leasing matter.
“We hope to get some better responses,” she said, but declined to discuss how many responses were actually received or what the city did not like about them.
The property is located at the corner of Webb Way and Pacific Coast Highway and has been available for lease for several months. The nearly half-acre commercial zoned property was the focus of attention when the realty firm moved after the city raised the rent and consolidated its offices on Malibu Road.
Coldwell Banker was leasing the site for $5.83 a square foot, which is about $337,000 per year. The city requested a minimum rental amount of $428,000, which is $7.37 a square foot. The realty firm’s lease, which the city assumed in 2006 after acquiring the property, expired on Dec. 31, 2008.
The stand-alone building, which consists of 4848 square feet, can be used as an office, retail or bank space. Due to limitations of the wastewater treatment system, the site cannot accommodate a restaurant or similar more intensive use, according to city officials.
Municipal officials have stated that they are looking for a long-term partnership in the building, seeking a lease term of 20 to 35 years. They want the minimum annual lease amount plus triple net.
The sizable rent increase on the building is part of the city’s aggressive stance to increase revenues to meet its growing overhead.
The city is going to be a “hard-nosed landlord,” according to the mayor at a recent public meeting, and set the maximum for rents in the Civic Center area as a major landowner.
This has some observers wondering whether this is the best policy in a period of economic downturn and an increased number of commercial vacancy signs throughout Malibu.