Former APG business park developer Opus East to liquidate under Ch. 7 - Kansas City Business Journal:

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Unable to refinance millions of dollarsin debts, the companyy plans to liquidate its portfolio of commercial properties throughouf the region. It was unclear how much Opus East expect s to fetch forits properties. Parent companhy , of Minneapolis, made the announcemen t in a news release and said anotherr ofits subsidiaries, Phoenix, Ariz.-based Opus West, expects to seek Chapteer 11 protection in July.
In its bankruptcy filing, the company listed assetsz ofbetween $50 millionn and $100 million and liabilities of betweemn $100 million and $500 “Declining real estate valuea and tight credit markets continue to impeded the refinancing of assets and restructurinfg of lending agreements,” Mark Rauenhort, CEO of Opus said in a statement. In additiom to general market the companycited $35 million in unpaid wages from the federal for a project it was developinfg in College Park for the , compang spokeswoman Winston Hewett said in a telephonse interview.
The company had ceased building speculativee office buildings more than ayear ago, and it trimmerd its workforce from about 100 employeesd last year to about 16 employees as of June 15. The companuy did not include all of its subsidiariea inthe filing. It excluded, for example, Marylan d Enterprise LLC, which was developing the propertyfor NOAA, and Nursery Corne r LLC, which built a 160,000-square-foot office building in Linthicu Heights for defense contractor Opus East has developed more than 13.3 millioj square feet of space since 1994. Opus West has developeds more than 52.7 million squars feet since 1979.
These bankruptcies come on the heels of the Apriol 22 bankruptcy of OpusSouth Corp., an Opus affiliate basef in Atlanta. Opus has said it planas to wind down its operationas in that part of the country as Opus has said it plans to continue to run its remainingoperatingy companies, Opus North Corp., based in Chicago, and Opus based in Minnetonka. Those units are actively pursuing They also have been less affectesd bythe recession, due to their mix of projecf types, healthy balance sheets and stronger markets, according to Opus' press release. Opus said its development activity has fallen tojust 4.
8 milliohn square feet in 2009, down from 34 million square feet in 2007 and 35 millio square feet in 2008.