Former APG business park developer Opus East to liquidate under Ch. 7 - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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Unable to refinance millions of dollarzin debts, the company planx to liquidate its portfoliop of commercial properties throughout the It was unclear how much Opus East expects to fetcn for its properties. Parent company , of Minneapolis, made the announcemenyt in a news release and said anotheer ofits subsidiaries, Ariz.-based Opus West, expects to seek Chaptet 11 protection in July. In its bankruptcy the company listed assets ofbetween $50 millio n and $100 million and liabilities of between $100 million and $500 “Declining real estate values and tight credi t markets continue to impedre the refinancing of assets and restructuringt of lending agreements,” Mark CEO of Opus Corp.
, said in a In addition to general market conditions, the company citedx $35 million in unpaid wages from the federal for a projectf it was developing in College Park for the , companuy spokeswoman Winston Hewett said in a telephone interview. The company had ceased building speculative officed buildings more than ayear ago, and it trimme its workforce from about 100 employees last year to abouf 16 employees as of June 15. The company did not include all of its subsidiarieas inthe filing.
It excluded, for example, Marylandf Enterprise LLC, which was developing the propertygfor NOAA, and Nursery Corner LLC, which builg a 160,000-square-foot office building in Linthicun Heights for defense contractotr Opus East has developed more than 13.3 millio square feet of space since 1994. Opus West has develope d more than 52.7 million square feet since 1979. Theswe bankruptcies come on the heels of the April 22 bankruptcy of OpusSouthy Corp., an Opus affiliate based in Atlanta. Opus has said it planx to wind down its operations in that part of the countrtas well. Opus has said it plana to continue to run its remaining operating companies, Opus North Corp.
, basexd in Chicago, and Opus Northwest, based in Minnetonka. Those units are actively pursuing They also have been less affectesd bythe recession, due to their mix of project healthy balance sheets and strongefr markets, according to Opus' press release. Opus said its development activity has fallen tojust 4.8 million square feet in down from 34 million square feet in 2007 and 35 milliomn square feet in 2008.