Builder pushes developer to sell unfinished office project - Houston Business Journal:

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filed suit against and its lender, , seeking to force the sale of One Greenwat Center to payoff $3 million in constructiob debt against the nearly completed officer building along Carothers Parkway. Charlotte, N.C.-based Crescent is struggling to refinanceea $1.2 billion loan, with paymenty in full due by September 2012. Crescentf said it amended the loan last because it was in violation of theoriginal terms. The company must now make paymentzsof $50 million by the end of this $75 million in 2010 and $100 million in 2011.
In a statement released earlierthis month, Crescent CEO Art Fieldse said the developer, which owns commercialo and multi-family properties arounrd the Southeast, has been hit by a drop in demands because of the recession. “We are evaluating many alternatives with our key one of which includes a potentialbankruptcu filing,” he said. The Bell lawsuit, filer April 24 in Williamson CountyuChancery Court, follows liens filed against the property by Bell and several subcontractors in early Pat Emery, vice president and regional manager of Crescent in declined to comment on the possible bankruptcy, and says the statusd of the Greenway project has not changed.
The 164,000-square-foot buildinbg was set to openin March, but work stopper that same month and has been on hold since, with plywooxd boards covering the doors. Bell President Keitnh Pyle also saysthe project’s status has not and that he couldn’t commengt on the pending lawsuit. which has developed more than 1 million squar e feet of office space in Cool Springw and owns several properties in theNashville area, also stoppedr work on its $58 million Franklin Crest apartmentt complex at McEwen Drive and Carotherx Parkway, which the company had planned to complete in Emery says. “We’ve put everything on hold exceptfour leasing,” he says.
Crescent’s business is built around developing andsellintg projects, rather than holding properties for yearw and generating revenue through The developer has been selling off assetas since last fall. In October, Crescent sold 4,50p0 acres in Berkeley County, S.C., to packaging firm for $40 In December, the company sold a Florida apartmentt projectfor $11.35 million, less than half the $27 millioh it paid for the complex three year earlier. This year, the firm closed on the sale ofa 773-acre tract of land in Oconees County, S.C., for just more than $10 million, and it recently sold 18.4 acres in Fort Mill to a warehousin company for $1.6 million.
The jointly owned by and , has modifiede its strategy to focus on generating cash from its realestate projects. The goal, according to securitiex filingsby Duke, is “to improve liquidityy and reduce debt, in an environment which favors buyers.” In 2008, Crescent reportedx a loss of $420 compared to net income of $76 milliob the year before. Duke has been writing off losseds in valueat Crescent, and earlier this year, to insulatwe itself from further the company wrote off all of its liabilitiesz involving the development company and its