W&H Pacific Taking 24,000-SF at Peterkort Centre II

PORTLAND-Fresh off buying itself back from the company that bought its parent company out of bankruptcy, W&H Pacific has agreed to a lease deal that will move the company from Nimbus Corporate Center to the third floor of Peterkort Centre II, a new six-story office building at the confluence of U.S. Route 26 and State Route 217 that cost $14 million to construct and is currently 23% leased.

The Bothell, Wash.-based infrastructure consulting and design firm sold itself to publicly traded IT Group Inc. of Monroeville, Pa., in May 2000 for $15 million. On the strength of its new acquisition, IT then pre-leased 50,700 sf at the 137,881-sf Peterkort Centre II, one 24,000-sf floor for W&H Pacific’s Portland offices and another for another acquisition, Emcon, which also leases space at Nimbus but will no longer be moving to Peterkort Centre II.

By January 2002, IT Group’s acquisitions helped build up approximately $1 billion in debt that the company couldn’t keep up with, forcing it to seek protection from creditors in bankruptcy court. That negated the lease deal, but not W&H’s want to be in the building, which was developed by the Peterkort family, one of the firm’s largest clients.