Capstone buying majority stake in Showplace properties
Transfer of ownership subject to approval by Bank of America
Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, August 26, 2009
HIGH POINT — Capstone Showplace Management, the minority owner of High Point's Showplace properties, says it has reached an agreement to acquire the majority stake in the properties from Walton Street Capital.Earlier this month, Showplace was placed into receivership after Walton Street defaulted on an $81 million loan, according to court records.
Capstone Showplace, owned by three developers -- High Point residents Maurice Hull and Coy Williard Jr. and Charlotte, N.C., resident Paul Bell -- said it had reached an agreement in principal with Walton Street to acquire the private equity firm's ownership position in the Showplace properties. It said the transfer of ownership is subject to the approval of the lender, Bank of America.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In a statement, Capstone Showplace said Walton Street had tried to negotiate a modification of the loan terms and "found itself in a dispute with the securitized lender's servicing agent. These negotiations became adversarial and a lawsuit was filed."
The Capstone Showplace owners said they were surprised when the lender's agent filed the action against Walton Street. The suit led a Guilford County Superior Court judge to place the showroom operator into receivership.
The receivership involves Showplace and Showplace West (the former First Factors building at 101 S. Main St.), as well as smaller showroom buildings at 200 N. Hamilton, 320 N. Hamilton and 330 N. Hamilton. All told, the properties have more than 700,000 square feet of showroom space, including about 470,000 square feet in Showplace.
Walton Street Capital had acquired the majority ownership of the Showplace properties in 2005, with Hull, Williard and Bell as minority stakeholders.
A Charlotte-based real estate services firm, Lincoln Harris, was named to manage the properties while they are in receivership. Existing Showplace managers are keeping their jobs, but some executives from Lincoln Harris have been added to the staff.
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is not enuf storage in showplace basement to store the left overs from past tenants now, who split and left their samples ,whats going to happen with the next 50 000 pcs of samples to be left in next few years as this crazy trend winds down, thats down not up. 81 mill $ ,must be partners w vegas folks w , deep pockets or really dumb.hp mkt shrinks daily the amount of space is scary and cheap , cheap , cheap........maitland smith/drexel/etc.........whole blocks for nothing.
furnecolgist - 2009-29-8 14:20:40 EDT -
I'm not sure owning anything in High Point is a smart move, much less showroom buildings with a book value of 81 million. The market is now about four days long in the spring (really!) and the same in the fall. Showrooms have become a financial albatross for the exhibitors and the number of true buyers continues to decline, regardless of what the Market Authority spins.
Unless these buildings can be one day turned over to Guilford County for use as schools the best thing would have been to walk away with a loss. As it stands now, the number of potential tenants continues to decline all the time.
charles farley - 2009-28-8 15:03:50 EDT
Developers bid for Showplace
08/30/2009Easter leaves Showplace
11/15/2009High Point's Showplace in receivership
08/24/2009
