CENTURY LIFTED FROM BANKRUPTCY

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 22, 1993                   TAG: 9301220225
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHARLYNE H. MCWILLIAMS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
CENTURY LIFTED FROM BANKRUPTCY
Commercial real estate developer Bruce Hobart said he has received court approval to remove bankruptcy protection from his Century Business Center and expects soon to have protection lifted from Townside Festival shopping center.
The move was the result of leases for new and expanding tenants. It means Hobart no longer is seeking Chapter 11 protection for financial reorganization of the two centers.
The bankruptcies were filed late last year when Hobart said he was unable to collect enough in rents to pay mortgages on the properties.
"It simply was a sign of the times," Hobart said. "It didn't have anything to do with Roanoke"; it was the "depressed real estate industry all over the country."
Ed Hall, president of Hall Associates, leasing agent for Hobart's Roanoke real estate, would not disclose the amount of additional space being taken by present tenants but did give the amount leased by new tenants.
The Century Business Center on Orange Avenue has three expanding tenants: Simplex Time Recorder Co., Atlantic Telephone & Telegraph and Affiliated Rehab. The new tenants are: Roanoke Sales & Service Inc., trading as Newbern Trane, leasing 7,000 square feet; NCR Corp., 3,500 square feet; and Carilion Health System's affiliate At-Home Care, 3,300 square feet.
The center is 80 percent occupied, with additional leases pending, Hobart said. He said he expects to have all but 2,500 square feet of the remaining 10,000 square feet rented by February.
Townside Festival shopping center on Franklin Road will have one expansion, by Allstate Insurance Co. Its four new tenants are TanLine Inc., 700 square feet; Message & Parcel Depot, 1,050 square feet; Wen-Wei Jin, trading as Shogun Restaurant, 2,400 square feet; and CellularOne, 1,400 square feet. Hobart said he anticipates the court will approve taking that center out of bankruptcy soon.
Another Hobart property, Penn Forest Corporate Center on Bernard Drive, is near agreement with its creditors on a repayment plan, suggesting it also is close to ending bankruptcy protection, said Hobart's lawyer, Carter Magee.
Other expansions for local Hobart properties include Colonnade Corporate Center I on Virginia 419, housing McGraw-Hill Inc., National Association of Security Dealers and Security Pacific Housing Services Inc. The Travelers Insurance Co. is a new tenant, taking about 4,000 square feet.
Rexnord Corp. is expanding in the Colonnade Corporate Center II on Virginia 419. HCMF Corp. and its real estate corporation are renting 19,200 square feet and Standard Register Co. will have more than 3,000 square feet there.
Northpark Business Center on Peters Creek Road will have four new businesses, including Baxter Healthcare Corp., trading as Caremark Homecare Inc., and DHL Worldwide Express, for which the amount of leased space was not disclosed. Also, Bell Atlantic Business Systems Services Inc. is leasing about 1,200 square feet and Harleysville Mutual Insurance Co. will take 1,800 square feet.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB