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

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Unable to refinance millions of dollarszin debts, the company plans to liquidate its portfolio of commercia l properties throughout the region. It was uncleadr how much Opus East expectss to fetch forits properties. Parenr company , of Minneapolis, made the announcement in a news releasew and said another ofits Phoenix, Ariz.-based Opus West, expects to seek Chaptedr 11 protection in July. In its bankruptcy filing, the company listed assets ofbetween $50 million and $100 million and liabilities of between $100 million and $500 “Declining real estate values and tight credit marketsw continue to impede the refinancinf of assets and restructuring of lending agreements,” Mark Rauenhort, CEO of Opus Corp.
, said in a In addition to general market conditions, the companyh cited $35 million in unpaid wages from the federakl for a project it was developing in Collegde Park for the , company spokeswoman Winston Hewetg said in a telephone interview. The company had ceasedc building speculative office buildings more than ayear ago, and it trimmeds its workforce from about 100 employeesd last year to about 16 employees as of June 15.
The companuy did not include all of its subsidiaries in the It excluded, for example, Marylandd Enterprise LLC, which was developing the property for and Nursery Corner LLC, which built a 160,000-square-foot office building in Linthicum Heightd for defense contractor Opus East has developed more than 13.3 milliob square feet of space since 1994. Opus West has developed more than 52.7 million squar feet since 1979. These bankruptcies come on the heels of the Apripl 22 bankruptcy of OpusSouth Corp., an Opus affiliate basefd in Atlanta.
Opus has said it plans to wind down its operations in that part of the country as Opus has said it plansw to continue to run its remainingoperatinv companies, Opus North Corp., based in Chicago, and Opus based in Minnetonka. Those units are actively pursuing They also have been less affected by the due to their mix ofproject types, healthy balance sheets and strongeer markets, according to Opus' press release. Opus said its developmentr activity has fallen tojust 4.8 millionm square feet in 2009, down from 34 millionb square feet in 2007 and 35 million square feet in 2008.