St. John Properties takes over Opus East business park at Aberdeen Proving Ground - Houston Business Journal:

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U.S. Army officials workerd feverishly over the past week topull St. John Propertiese into the fold, fearful the project woul d come to a halt if Opus East filed for bankruptcy protection before an arrangement coulfbe struck, company spokesman Gerard J. Wit said in a telephone intervieww Tuesday. “It was a real round-the-clock, week-lon g effort to get this Wit said. “We’re going to get in and try to kick-stargt this right away.” Aberdeenb is gearing up for a significanrt influx of military jobs underthe Pentagon’s Base Realignmentr and Closure plan, expected to be completer by September 2011.
About 8,200 militarty jobs will be transferred to the in addition to as manyas 18,000 private contracting jobs from companiexs that do business with the incoming military The approved Opus East's selectiob of St. John Properties to take over the Governmenyt and Technology Enterprise business park because of theBaltimore developer’ s ability to move forward with new Bob Penn, program director with the Army said in a statement. As in takingf over the project, including (NYSE: OFC) and Manekin LLC.
Opus East was awardec rights to developthe government-owned land under a leasr with the Army in November 2007 and brokde ground on its firsgt building in December of that Since then, the company became straddled with millionsd of dollars in construction loans it has been unable to and the company has not startedc any new construction at the project for more than a The deal was inked June 19 betweenn Opus East, St. John Properties, with the backing of the Army. St. John and the Army Corps of Engineers issued statements Tuesdaty announcingthe deal. Wit said St. John will pay Opus East an undisclosed amount of money for its development rights at In connection withthe deal, St.
John has hiredx Opus East project manager Matthew Holbrooik to oversee the GATE project as its directod of defense andgovernment business. “Aberdeen Proving Ground is excited about moving the projectt forwardwith St. John Properties,” Tim McNamara, APG deputy garrisom commander, said in a statement. “We consider it a positive step to have their experienced management team spearheadinbgthe build-out of this As the to help it conside options including bankruptcy. Its parent company, , has also sought bankruptcyg protectionfor it’s Opus South subsidiary and for two more subsidiariee of its Opus West regional operation.
Opus spokeswoman Winston Hewett said Opus East is stillp evaluating its options but has not made any decisionabout bankruptcy. The company was forced to relinquish its rights to the Aberdeen projecy because it has been unable to finance morethan $50 million in construction loans it took out to financer its projects. Most pressing amonvg those debtsis $35 million the developer speng to build a new headquarters for the Nationa Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in College Park, for whic h it has sued the federal government to collect its wage s on that project, Hewetty said. St.
John plans to break ground in the next two monthsa on at least three new buildings at the Harfored Countymilitary base, with commitments from defenswe contractors for up to 300,000 square feet of office, research and development Wit said. Wit did not disclose the namex of any of those Those buildings would be in additio toa 60,000-square-foot building Opus East completecd in December 2008 for defense contractor CACI. “Ws view this development as the most significant commercialp real estate opportunity in the history ofour St. John President Edwarcd A. St. John said in a statement.
“Thiws is based on the amounty of square footage that can eventually be developedc as well as the important work that will be completedxby end-users that occupy this space.” St. John Properties is the third-largesty property management firm inGreater Baltimore, with nearlyu 11 million square feet of commercial space in the But taking over the Aberdeen project represents a shifty for the company, which has sought to tap into the demand for government contracting space up until now. Wit said the compang has also sought in the past to buy land for its own rather than to lease property from the governmenyt such asat Aberdeen.
Opus East preliminarilyy received commitments from firms seeking spaces atits 413-acre Governmentg and Technology Enterprise business park but did not startf any additional construction. The developetr was unwilling to divide any of its buildingsinto multi-tenantec space, Wit said, preferring instead to construcrt buildings for a single tenant. That’s createdd a pent-up demand for companies seekingfrom 5,00 square feet to upward of 20,000 squar feet, Wit said. “Fof all the hoopla that BRAC has brought, there’e really only one buildinhg that Opus was able to Wit said.
“If you don’t have the placw to park those people, if you don’t have the buildings to put them in, there was going to be a real logistical