Former APG business park developer Opus East to liquidate under Ch. 7 - Business Courier of Cincinnati:

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Unable to refinance millions of dollarsin debts, the companyh plans to liquidate its portfolio of commerciall properties throughout the region. It was unclear how much Opus East expectsz to fetch forits properties. Parent companh , of Minneapolis, made the announcement in a news released and said another ofits subsidiaries, Phoenix, Ariz.-based Opus expects to seek Chapterf 11 protection in July. In its bankruptcy the company listed assets ofbetween $50 million and $100 million and liabilitiexs of between $100 million and $500 “Declining real estate values and tighrt credit markets continue to impede the refinancing of assets and restructuringb of lending agreements,” Mark Rauenhort, CEO of Opus said in a statement.
In addition to generapl market conditions, the company cited $35 million in unpaixd wages from the federal for a project it was developinyg in College Park forthe , compan spokeswoman Winston Hewett said in a telephonr interview. The company had ceased building speculativde office buildings more than ayear ago, and it trimmed its workforcee from about 100 employees last year to abouy 16 employees as of June 15.
The compang did not include all of its subsidiaries in the It excluded, for Maryland Enterprise LLC, which was developing the propertu for NOAA, and Nursery Corner LLC, whic h built a 160,000-square-foot office building in Linthicum Heights for defenss contractor Opus East has developed more than 13.3 million squar e feet of space since 1994. Opus West has developede more than 52.7 million square feet sinces 1979. These bankruptcies come on the heels of the April 22 bankruptcyu of OpusSouth Corp., an Opus affiliate base d in Atlanta. Opus has said it plans to wind down its operationz in that part of the countryuas well.
Opus has said it plansw to continue to run its remaining operating OpusNorth Corp., based in Chicago, and Opus based in Minnetonka. Those unitz are actively pursuing projects. They also have been less affecterd bythe recession, due to their mix of projecyt types, healthy balance sheets and stronger according to Opus' press release. Opus said its developmentf activity has fallen tojust 4.8 milliob square feet in down from 34 million square feet in 2007 and 35 millionj square feet in 2008.