St. John Properties takes over Opus East business park at Aberdeen Proving Ground - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

pabigy.wordpress.com
U.S. Army officials worked feverishly over the past week topull St. John Propertiee into the fold, fearfu the project would come to a halt if Opus East filed for bankruptcyt protection before an arrangement couldbe struck, company spokesmaj Gerard J. Wit said in a telephones interview Tuesday. “It was a real week-long effort to get this done,” Wit said. “We’re goinyg to get in and try to kick-star t this right away.” Aberdeen is geariny up for a significant influxz of military jobs underthe Pentagon’s Base Realignmentt and Closure plan, expected to be completecd by September 2011.
About 8,200 military jobs will be transferred to the in addition to as manyas 18,000 private contractinb jobs from companies that do busines with the incoming militarhy agencies. The approved Opus East'z selection of St. John Properties to take over the Government and Technology Enterprise businesx park because of theBaltimore developer’s ability to move forwar with new construction, Bob Penn, program director with the Army Corps, said in a As in taking over the project, including (NYSE: OFC) and Manekin LLC.
Opus East was awarded rights to developthe government-owned land under a leas e with the Army in November 2007 and broke grounxd on its first building in December of that Since then, the company becams straddled with millions of dollars in constructiobn loans it has been unable to refinance, and the company has not starterd any new construction at the project for more than a The deal was inked June 19 betweemn Opus East, St. John Properties, with the backing of the St. John and the Army Corps of Engineers issuesd statements Tuesday announcingthe deal. Wit said St. John will pay Opus East an undisclosexd amount of money for its development rights at In connection withthe deal, St.
John has hiredx Opus East project manager Matthew Holbrooj to oversee the GATE project as its director of defensse andgovernment business. “Aberdeen Provinv Ground is excited about moving the project forwarfwith St. John Tim McNamara, APG deputy garriso commander, said in a statement. “We considetr it a positive step to have theird experienced management team spearheadingthe build-ou of this project.” As the to help it consider options including bankruptcy. Its parenf company, , has also soughrt bankruptcy protectionfor it’s Opus Southb subsidiary and for two more subsidiaries of its Opus West regionalp operation. Opus Corp.
spokeswoman Winstom Hewett said Opus East is still evaluating its optionz but has not made any decisionsabouy bankruptcy. The company was forced to relinquishg its rights to the Aberdeen projec t because it has been unablwe to finance morethan $50 million in constructionn loans it took out to finance its Most pressing among thosed debts is $35 millionj the developer spent to build a new headquarters for the Nationa Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in College Park, for whichy it has sued the federal government to collect its wages on that project, Hewett St.
John plans to break grouned in the next two months on at least threed new buildings at the Harford Countymilitaryu base, with commitments from defense contractors for up to 300,000 squard feet of office, research and development space, Wit Wit did not disclose the names of any of those Those buildings would be in addition to a 60,000-square-foott building Opus East completed in December 2008 for defensse contractor CACI. “We view this development as the most significantg commercial real estate opportunity in the history ofour company,” St. John President Edwardd A. St. John said in a statement.
“Thisz is based on the amount of squarw footage that can eventually be developed as well as the importan work that will be completedby end-usere that occupy this space.” St. John Properties is the third-larges t property management firm inGreater Baltimore, with nearly 11 million square feet of commercial space in the region. But taking over the Aberdeen projectr represents a shift forthe company, whicu has sought to tap into the demand for governmen contracting space up until now. Wit said the company has also sought in the past to buy land for its own rather than to lease propert y from the government such asat Aberdeen.
Opus East preliminarily received commitments from firms seeking space atits 413-acre Government and Technology Enterprised business park but did not start any additional The developer was unwilling to divide any of its buildings into multi-tenantefd space, Wit said, preferriny instead to construct buildings for a single That’s created a pent-up demand for companies seeking from 5,009 square feet to upward of 20,000 square Wit said.
“For all the hoopl that BRAC has brought, there’s reallty only one building that Opus was ableto build,” Wit “If you don’t have the place to park those if you don’t have the buildingz to put them in, there was going to be a real logisticalk problem.”