Taylor-Morley Homes, one of the area’s largest home builders, has allegedly defaulted on a $16.5 million loan according to a suit filed last month by Southwest Bank of St. Louis. According to the St. Louis Business Journal, Taylor-Morley’s revenue took a hit last year after several years of growth. The Chesterfield-based home builder 2006 revenue was $74.7 million in revenue, down from $114.7 million the previous year. Taylor-Morley currently has 16 new-home communities on the market in St. Louis and the Metro East, down from 28 in March.

Source: St. Louis Business Journal

Phase I construction on Market at McKnight, a $95 million mixed-use development in Rock Hill, will be complete this month. The project is being developed by Novus Development, with The Lawrence Group providing master planning for the entire project and complete architectural services for the first phase. Hensley Construction is general contractor.

Phase I includes 126,000 square feet of retail space. Stein Mart will be the anchor with additional tenants including Starbucks Coffee, Clarkson Eye Care, Cartridge World and Bandana’s.
Phase II will include 150,000 square feet of retail space, 50,000 square feet of office space and 150,000 square feet of residential space. Completion is scheduled for 2010.

Source: REBusiness Online 

Although spending on private non-residential real estate projects jumped 17% in the past year, architects and builders are keeping an eye out for signs that the worldwide credit crunch may be spreading through the entire real estate market, according to Building Design + Construction.

The commercial real estate market has helped keep the economy afloat as the housing market has plummeted. But even before the housing slowdown, commercial lenders were  tightening standards and reporting that more developers were falling behind on loan payments.

U.S. banks and thrifts reported a 40% rise in past-due construction and development loans in the second quarter of 2007, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Some contractors are reporting that lenders have reworked pricing and risk-analysis models.

Still, confidence remains high among architecture firms, which often are the first to lose work in a development slowdown. The American Institute of Architects’s July forecast high hit the second-highest level since the group starting keeping records in 1995.

The University of Missouri St. Louis (UMSL) has purchased a $2.7 million, 56,000-square-foot laboratory facility and will renovate it for use as a new tech incubator and supercomputing center.

The building, across the highway from Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, had been renovated for use as a lab by Incyte Genomics, a Wilmington, Delaware-based pharmaceutical company. The facility comes equipped with a 3,000-square-foot central computing chamber and peripheral office/lab spaces. These niche improvements were attractive to UMSL for their IT Enterprises, a new business incubator set to open at the end of 2007.

UMSL plans to invest several million dollars in IT Enterprises, which will house a supercomputer and up to 12 startup companies. UMSL hopes the supercomputer will attract researchers and financial grants, which in turn will vitalize the business incubator. The building would have required significant interior renovation had it been sold to a traditional office user.

Source: Midwest Real Estate News

The retail sector is lagging behind the pack in green building, according to The U.S. Green Building Council. They report that LEED project certifications for green buildings overall were up 67% from 2005 to 2006. But of the more than 800 LEED certified projects to-date, only 50 retail projects have been certified.

The key issue is real cost vs. spec benefits. Developers would pay more for green features and may not be able to recoup those costs in higher rents or faster lease-up. Still, the number of large retailers announcing green building initiatives has accelerated in 2007 and should peak in 2008-2009.
For more on the factors driving the green retail market, see Greening the Retail Sector in Building Design + Construction.

Building Design + Construction

The St. Louis County Port Authority has completed a land purchase that will pave the way for construction to begin on the $375 million Pinnacle Entertainment casino and hotel project. The project is expected to create 1,000 construction jobs.

The County purchased 39 acres in south St. Louis County that Pinnacle will use to build a four-lane access road to its planned River City Casino and Hotel. Pinnacle plans to open the development in 2008.

The County bought the land for $3 million in early July, according to sources. The property, the former site of the Air Force National Imagery and Mapping Agency, was heavily damaged by the 1993 flood. Environmental remediation is expected to begin immediately.

Source: St. Louis Business Journal, MSN Money.com