Citing confidentiality agreements, Davis Marcus co-founder Jonathan Davis declined to discuss the status when contacted by GlobeSt.com, but sources say the intemperate lending climate ultimately led to the deal's demise. "It's just a different landscape," one source tells GlobeSt.com. "The rules have totally changed." Another industry professional marveled that the parties were able to keep the process afloat as long as they did, with numerous other sales efforts collapsing last summer and autumn under the weight of the deteriorating market.

Sources could not say whether Davis Marcus Partners tried to get the sellers to adjust their pricing from when the commitment was initially made in August, but some opined that the altered lending situation would have required such a concession in order to make the numbers work. CrossPoint is owned by a partnership of Yale Properties USA and DivcoWest Properties. There may have also been an increased equity demand from the buyers, observers note, with loan-to-value ratios adjusting sharply since mid-summer. "It's very tough to get things done right now," says one broker who concurs that the CrossPoint pact has succumbed to the dour conditions.

The unfulfilled transaction is the latest in a series of roller-coaster events for CrossPoint, constructed in the 1970s when the Massachusetts computer industry produced such giants as Digital Equipment Corp. and Wang Laboratories. The latter firm, headed by industry icon An Wang, built the erstwhile Wang Towers as a fortress-like campus that established the Interstate 495 North office market. When Wang Laboratories crumbled in the early 1990s, the park was taken over by its lender, which dumped the vacant buildings at auction in 1994 for barely 35 cents per sf. Later trading for $108 million, CrossPoint has since undergone a dramatic rebirth. The good times were briefly interrupted by the recession that hit in 2001, but an aggressive leasing campaign by Yale and Divco has since made it one of the top producing assets in the area in the wake of that technology related downturn.