General Growth Properties declares Bankruptcy – Architects & Engineers on the Top 100 Unsecured-Creditors List

It’s that damn “double-whammy” effect.

It’s not only awful that reprographers have experienced (and are continuing to experience) a downturn in business due to the messy economy, but customers of reprographers – A&E firms - are experiencing that downturn as well. In addition to business being down, reprographers are now also facing collections problems, given the fact that their customers – the A&E firms – are having difficulty collecting from some of their clients. That’s the double-whammy effect.

How many times, over your years in the reprographics business, have you heard you’re A&E customers say, “sorry, I can’t pay you until I get paid by my clients”…?

Today, General Growth Properties, one of the largest mall and shopping center developers in the U.S. (if not in the entire world), declared Chapter 11 Bankruptcy today. In the court filing, General Growth was required to reveal its 100 largest “unsecured” creditors. Not surprisingly, there were 12 A&E firms on the top 100 unsecured creditor list. (This is not exactly the type of “top list” that anyone would ever want to be on!)

A&E FIRMS ON GGP’S “TOP 100” UNSECURED CREDITOR LIST:

SB ARCHITECTS, SF, CA, $651,000

WOOD ROGERS, INC., SACRAMENTO, CA, $491,000

CARTER BURGESS, INC., FT WORTH, TX, $400,000

TORTI GALLAS AND PARTNERS, INC., SILVER SPRING, MD $245,000

CALLISON ARCHITECTURE, INC. SEATTLE, WA, $205,000

DUANY PLATER-ZYBERK & CO, MIAMI, FL, $199,000

PERKOWITZ + RUTH ARCHITECTS, COSTA MESA, CA, $163,000

ABMB ENGINEERS, INC., BATON ROUGE, LA, $162,000

ANBE ARUGA & ISHIZU ARCHITECTS, HONOLULU, HI, $135,000

SCHNACKEL ENGINEERS, INC. OMAHA, NE, $128,000

LAND DESIGN, CHARLOTTE, NC, $112,000

CARROLL ASSOCIATES ARCHITECTS LTD, PALATINE, IL, $92,000

These aren’t the only A&E firms that were hit by GGP’s bankruptcy. Given the nature of GGP’s development business, it is very likely that countless other A&E firms, in many parts of the U.S., are also owed significant amounts by GGP. In one sense, those firms were lucky – they did not make the “top 100” list!

One final note. Our very first customer showed up in the top 100 list. When my father in-law (Gus) founded (1963) Silver Spring Blueprinting (which later became part of Rowley-Scher Reprographics), his first customer was a firm that then went by the name of Cohen & Haft – Architects and Planners (later known as CHK and, at one time, as CHHKK.) In fact, the senior partner of that firm (Jack) helped my father-in-law establish his blueprinting company; Jack loaned him the money to buy his first diazo machine. Many years later, Jack and his other partners retired, and a new management team took over CHK; John Torti, who is an architect, and Tom Gallas, who is a C.P.A. At that time, the firm adopted a new name, Torti Gallas & Partners. I hope that the $245,000 TG&P has exposed does not negatively impact TG&P’s employees (some of whom I still know, even after all these years) or TG&P’s reprographers. I’m pretty sure that ABC Imaging is the reprographer serving TG&P.