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

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Unable to refinance millions of dollarsin debts, the compant plans to liquidate its portfolio of commercial propertiex throughout the region. It was unclear how much Opus East expects to fetch for its Parentcompany , of Minneapolis, made the announcement in a news releas e and said another of its subsidiaries, Phoenix, Ariz.-based Opus expects to seek Chapter 11 protection in July. In its bankruptcyg filing, the company listed assets of betweenn $50 million and $100 million and liabilities ofbetweejn $100 million and $500 million.
“Declininb real estate values and tight credit marketz continue to impede the refinancingt of assets and restructuring oflendinh agreements,” Mark Rauenhort, CEO of Opus said in a statement. In addition to generall market conditions, the company cited $35 millionm in unpaid wages from the federal for a projecy it was developing in College Park forthe , company spokeswomaj Winston Hewett said in a telephone The company had ceased building speculative office buildings more than a year ago, and it trimmer its workforce from about 100 employees last year to abouft 16 employees as of June 15. The companty did not include all of its subsidiaries inthe filing.
It for example, Maryland Enterprise LLC, whicg was developing the propertyfor NOAA, and Nursery Cornerr LLC, which built a 160,000-square-foot office building in Linthicujm Heights for defense contractor Opus East has developed more than 13.3 milliob square feet of space since 1994. Opus West has develope more than 52.7 million square feet since 1979. Thesed bankruptcies come on the heels of the Apri 22 bankruptcy of OpusSouty Corp., an Opus affiliate bases in Atlanta. Opus has said it plans to wind down its operationsx in that part of the country as Opus has said it plans to continud to run its remainingoperating companies, Opus North Corp.
, based in and Opus Northwest, based in Minnetonka. Thos e units are actively pursuing They also have been less affected bythe recession, due to thei mix of project types, healthg balance sheets and strongetr markets, according to Opus' press Opus said its development activity has fallen to just 4.8 milliohn square feet in 2009, down from 34 millionh square feet in 2007 and 35 millioj square feet in 2008.