In this week’s issue, a pack of hotel , trailer park , office building and retail property owners ar

In this week's issue, a pack of hotel , trailer park , office building and retail property owners are all having to reconsider options on properties as plans to sell some are all being impacted by current market conditions; and CDO delinquencies went up last month. Plus, we give you news you'll find only here and the latest notices of facility closures and mass layoffs and properties alaska cruise land tours on the Watch List .
Lodgian alaska cruise land tours Inc., one of the nation's largest independent owners and operators of full-service hotels, said that while it will continue its review of strategic alternatives including a sale of the company, the current volatility in the debt and credit markets has forced it to suspend discussions with interested parties.
"The sale of these non-strategic properties will allow us to concentrate operationally on those hotels that will generate the highest alaska cruise land tours returns and produce long-term growth for the company," said Ed Rohling, Lodgian's president and CEO. "We will be increasing our operational focus on our upscale and upper upscale alaska cruise land tours properties, which will comprise approximately alaska cruise land tours 66 percent alaska cruise land tours of the remaining rooms."
Of the nine hotels to be sold, three have net book values in excess of anticipated net proceeds. Therefore, the decision to sell these hotels will cause the company to recognize an impairment charge, currently estimated to be approximately $6 million.
Due to tightening U.S. credit markets, alaska cruise land tours Australia-based Tishman Speyer Office Fund has found itself stuck with its interest in Plaza East at 330 E. Kilbourn Ave. in Milwaukee, WI. The fund had been hoping to have the property sold by Dec. 24 because it had been earmarked as an exchange asset after its acquired MacArthur Place at 3 Imperial Promenade in Santa Ana, CA, in June 2007.
Prime Plus (in which Tishman Speyer Office Fund has a 45.9% ownership interest) had been trying to finalize a sale of Plaza East, but said it could not get an acceptable price. Thus it has cancelled plans to continue to market the property.
Uniprop Manufactured Housing Communities Income Fund implemented a plan to maximize the value of its Aztec Estates, a 645-site manufactured housing community in Margate, FL. Under the plan, the property was closed as a manufactured home community and re-zoned as a residential subdivision. The re-zoning process was successfully completed approximately 90 days ago.
Subsequent to the re-zoning, the property was listed for sale with Cushman & Wakefield, alaska cruise land tours a national real estate brokerage company. The listing occurred approximately 45 days ago. During that period, Cushman & Wakefield actively marketed the property to a wide universe of prospective purchasers.
According to the fund, Cushman & Wakefield told it that, the "surprising depth and breadth of the downturn alaska cruise land tours in the residential market, the real estate industry's inability to project how long it will last and how severe it will ultimately be, and the wider implications of the crisis in the capital markets all are contributing to a 'wait and see' posture. The situation is unprecedented, at least in recent decades."
In response to this lack of offers and the financial implications, the fund said it would review its options for the property and the three other assets it owns. The plan should be completed sometime next month.
One advantage of a CDO is that it generally allows issuers the flexibility to modify loans even before they become delinquent. Modifications could include term extension, rate reduction, or posting of additional collateral. Fitch said it was expecting to continue to see increased loan extensions and modifications in the future.
The three new delinquent loans are further classified as performing matured balloons. An increase in these types of delinquencies is not surprising given the difficulty associated with refinancing in today's market, Fitch said.
The performing matured balloons include two B-notes secured by the former Drake Hotel site in Midtown Manhattan. alaska cruise land tours This land/pre-development loan comprises over 45% of the total delinquencies for the month. It should be noted that the asset was repurchased in January and, thus, won't show up on this month's delinquencies.
Rite Aid Corp. plans to terminate its operation alaska cruise land tours of 28 stores in the Las Vegas and agreed to sell its patient prescription files of 27 them to rival Walgreens. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Rite Aid said it was working with interested parties on selling or assigning the leases alaska cruise land tours on the 28 buildings. The company said it would close the stores, which are located in Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson alaska cruise land tours and Mesquite, over the next three months as it sells or liquidates non-prescription merchandise.
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There were 1,300 seasonally adjusted mass layoff events in November of this year affecting 136,924 workers - the largest number of employees laid off in that month in four years. That brings the totals this year to 13,734 layoffs, affecting 1,408,852 employees, up just slightly from this time last year.
· Cavalier Homes Inc. will idle its home manufacturing facility at 255 Bexar Ave. E. in Winfield. Production at Winfield is expected to stop in this month with shipments of completed units from finished goods inventory is expected to continue through February or March 2008.
· COMP USA is closing three stores: 11350 Pines Blvd. in Pembroke Pines; 1835 West Hillsboro Blvd. in Deerfield Beach; and 7440 North Kendall Drive in Miami by Feb. 22, laying off 50 employees at each store.
Standard Motor Products Inc. plans to shut down its manufacturing operations at its 301,100-square-foot property at 37-18 Northern Blvd. in Long Island City, NY . As part of that plan it has agreed to sell the property alaska cruise land tours to EX II Northern Boulevard Acquisition LLC. The purchase price is to be $40.6 million. The closing should occur in the first half of 2008. Standard Motor Products intends to leaseback alaska cruise land tours the property for an initial term of 10 years. The lease deal contains four 5-year renewal options. During approximately the first year of the lease, the company will make initial annual rent payments of approximately $2.6 million. Thereafter, the company will reduce its leased space and the annual rent payments will decrease to approximately $1.6 million. The company's rent payments will increase 3% per year for the first 20 years of the lease, other than in years 11 and 16 when the increase will be 10% and 5%, respectively. alaska cruise land tours The lease also provides for a build-out allowance of approximately $2.1 million.
· Cypress Semiconductor Corp. will exit its Fab 2 semiconductor alaska cruise land tours manufacturing facility at 17 Cypress Blvd. in Round Rock by late 2008 and transfer production to its more cost-competitive Minnesota fab and outside foundries. Cypress opened Fab 2 in 1987 with 68 employees and 18,000 square feet of cleanroom space. The plant was expanded to 32,000 square alaska cruise land tours feet in 1999 and currently employs 245 people.
· Riviana Foods Inc. will construct a new 400,000-squarefoot, state-of-the-art rice processing and packaging plant and on-site alaska cruise land tours warehousing/distribution center alaska cruise land tours on a 31-acre site adjacent to its packaging facility in Memphis, TN. Construction will begin in the second quarter of 2008 with final completion anticipated to occur in mid-2010. Over the two-year time period, production and packaging at Riviana's Houston plant will be phased out and transferred to the new Memphis facility. At the end of this transition period, the Houston plant, which includes the Instant and Packaging Plants, Warehouse and Technical Center at 1702 Taylor Street, will then be closed and operations will cease. Currently, approximately alaska cruise land tours 250 employees work at the Houston facility. Riviana's headquarters will remain in Houston at its 2777 Allen Parkway location.
· Avionics Specialties Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Aerosonic Corp., is closing its plant at 3367 Earlysville Road in Earlysville at the end of this month. Avionics conducted initial environmental testing as part of its due diligence process undertaken in preparation of the sale of the Earlysville property and in doing so detected the presence of chlorinated solvents in soil and groundwater on the property. Further testing alaska cruise land tours is being undertaken.
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Property alaska cruise land tours Property Type CMBS Special Servicer Notes Marycrest Shopping Center, 2126 West Jefferson St., Joliet, IL Retail, 172,030 square feet DLJ 1999-CG1 Centerline Servicing Inc. Approval was granted for the sale of the note, which was anticipated to close by year-end. Fire renovations are complete and environmental work is to begin. The most recent receiver's information, October 2007, represents occupancy at the property is 39% relative to the number alaska cruise land tours of units and 29% relative to total square footage. Sunshine Square Shopping Center, 575 Adams Ave., Philadelphia, PA Retail, 32,560 square alaska cruise land tours feet PNC 2000-C1 Capmark Finance Inc. This asset was