OXFORD — The president of Excel Homes, a Pennsylvania-based modular home-building company since 1984, said this week that an unprecedented modular housing market slump forced his company to change plans on reopening the former Oxford Homes on Route 26.

“We had an option on the building but that ran out,” Excel Homes President Steve Scharnhorst said this week.

The 46,000-square-foot, steel-frame manufacturing plant on nearly 17 acres of land on Route 26 was auctioned off last month for a reported $562,000.

Excel Homes bought the assets of Oxford Homes last year after the manufactured-homes business ceased operations in April  2008. Excel Homes officials had hoped to reopen the plant last spring under the Excel name bringing as many as 50 to 70 hourly and salaried jobs to the area.

Scharnhorst said his company decided to let the lease run out because of the “unprecedented market.”

Auctioneer Paul McInnis of New Hampshire said there were four bidders, but the mortgage holder, Zions First National Bank in Salt Lake City, Utah, placed the winning bid.

“They were the mortgage holder. They had the right to bid to protect their interests,” McInnis said of the property that only two years ago employed more than 100 people and had built thousands of single-family homes since it opened in the 1970s.

The mortgage was held with Killarney Holdings, a limited liability corporation which was held by former Oxford Homes President Peter Connell of Norway. Connell could not be reached for comment.

A spokesperson for the Utah-based bank was unable to confirm what plans the bank has for the property.

In April, Scharnhorst said the market was “tough” but Excel was fairing well in the Maine market but not well enough to open the plant at that time. But just weeks before the auction last month, Scharnhorst said they were still in a “holding pattern” but said it was unlikely the Oxford plant would reopen soon because of the slump in the housing market.

Excel Homes still manufactures Excel and Avis Homes in their Liverpool and Avis, Pa., and Marlboro, N.Y., plants and supplies products within New England, Scharnhorst said.

The move does not mean that the company will not enter the Maine market again, he said.

“Absolutely. There’s still an important market out there,” Scharnhorst said when asked if he ever saw his company doing business in this area again.

The assets of the former Oxford Homes were purchased by Eco Building Systems in 2007 after the company owed more than $318,000 in unsecured loans to nine creditors from across New England. The company was forced to liquidate by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Portland.

Then in early 2008, Eco Building Systems laid off its 93 employees. The site has remained closed since.

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The road to the former Oxford Homes on Route 26 remained unplowed Tuesday as hopes for reviving the plant appeared dim this week.