SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Fry’s Electronics, the go-to chain for tech tinkerers looking for an obscure part, is closing for good.

The company, perhaps even more well known for outlandish themes at some of its stores, from Aztec to “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” said Wednesday in an online posting that the COVID-19 pandemic had made it impossible to continue.

Fans immediately took to Twitter to post images and memories (good and bad).

Fry’s had one Oregon location off of Interstate 5 in Wilsonville near the Wilsonville Town Center.  The chain was concentrated on the West Coast, but had 31 stores in nine states. It was founded 36 years ago.

Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData, called it “the end of an era, and a sad day” for an army of loyal customers.

The pandemic has done heavy damage to retailers, but Fry’s was already getting hammered by online competition and a battle between heavy-hitters Best Buy and Amazon.com.

The wild themes became more of a burden than an experience, Saunders said, and when the chain began to struggle, gaps began to appear on shelves in the the cavernous stores, making them a shell of what they once were.

“Fry’s was really a business build for the 1980s electronics boom. During that era, it was a gathering place for enthusiasts of an industry that was on fire,” Saunders said. “However, those days have long since gone and now too has an icon that represented them.”

Fry’s Electronics Inc. said its operations have ceased and the wind-down of locations will begin immediately. Customers with electronics being repaired in-store store are being asked to pick them up.

The chain’s online presence appears largely to have been shut down.

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SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The Salem and Brooks vegetable processing plants owned by bankrupt NORPAC Foods could soon reopen after Lineage Logistics filed to purchase the company’s Oregon properties for $49 million, according to court records.

The Statesman-Journal reports that a bankruptcy judge is scheduled to hear the petition for the proposed sale Jan. 14 in bankruptcy court in Portland.

The sale would include NORPAC’s Willamette Valley processing facilities in Salem, Brooks and Stayton, along with the field shop in Quincy, Washington.

NORPAC attorney Al Kennedy said in court that Lineage Logistics will lease the plants in Salem and Brooks from NORPAC until the sale is completed.

And Lineage would lease those to Oregon Potato Company to operate until the sale is done, which would allow some of the 1,400 NORPAC workers who had been notified they could be laid off to continue to work.

Lineage Logistics, which was formed in 2008, is one of the largest cold storage companies in the world, including operating 169 cold storage warehouses in the United States and more in countries such as China and the United Kingdom.

NORPAC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in August. The company indicated it would sell most of the company’s assets to Oregon Potato Co. for $155 million, but the deal fell through.

According to court documents, CoBank – the lender that has financed NORPAC’s bankruptcy – has liens against the company’s Salem, Brooks and Stayton plants for more than $382 million.

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It’s been a big week for commercial real estate firm , which on Tuesday participated in its first bankruptcy hearing in New York.

On Monday, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and announced that it had signed an agreement to substantially sell its assets to . The global brokerage company is hoping to acquire Grubb & Ellis as an asset sale under Section 363 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

While Grubb & Ellis officials would not comment on the company’s financial situation, David Kotansky, managing director of Colliers International in Portland, said the filing was something of a sign of the times.

“If you look at the height of the market and the years leading up to the height of the market, there were a lot of properties that were trading,” Kotansky said. “They were trading at big numbers, and there were lots of fees generated. You take that whole part of the equation out of it and that’s a lot of lost revenue.”

According to Grubb & Ellis’ 2010 annual report to the SEC, the company generated $575.5 million in revenue two years ago – a 9 percent increase from 2009, but a 19 percent decrease from 2007.

Kotansky said that while he was not familiar with Grubb & Ellis’ specific financial situation, he expects to see more mergers between companies as they search for ways to stay competitive. Indeed, a merger worked out well for Colliers in 2005 when FirstService – a billion-dollar property services company – acquired a 70 percent stake in Colliers Macaulay Nicolls, the largest entity within Colliers International.

Beth DuPont, principal broker at Winkler and DuPont in Portland, said the acquisition of Grubb & Ellis might be a sign of a company positioning itself to take advantage of a rebounding economy.

“I just think it’s a realignment of two firms that are trying to be competitive and trying to stay viable in the market,” she said. “I think we probably will see more of these and I think it’s probably a healthy sign in the market that things are making a comeback and turning around.”

As part of initiating the Chapter 11 process, all of Grubb’s previous lender commitments are automatically terminated and the principal amount of loans, reimbursement obligations, associated interest and fees are due immediately.

BGC, acting as a “stalking horse” buyer, stands to acquire Grubb & Ellis’ assets for approximately $30.03 million. It is providing the troubled firm a senior-secured, debtor-in-possession loan of approximately $4.8 million so that operations can continue during the court proceedings and acquisition process.

“While there are still a few national firms that are ‘de-leveraging,’ there will not be a trend of other brokerages closing due to high debt loads,” Brian Owendoff, senior vice president of Capacity Commercial Group LLC, said via email. “Grubb & Ellis’ challenge was $10 million in debt from the sale of NNN Realty Advisors it sold in 2011.”

Owendoff, however, said Grubb & Ellis has a strong Portland office and that he expects the team to possibly rebrand itself under the Newmark Knight Frank banner.

Robert Hubbell of BGC Partners said he was not able to comment on the acquisition beyond what was released in press releases by Grubb & Ellis and BGC Partners. Andrea Rose of Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher, the New York public relations firm hired by Grubb & Ellis, also said she was unable to comment about the deal or the potential length of the proceedings.

The announcement of the acquisition comes on the heels of a Feb. 10 notice by Grubb & Ellis executive C. Michael Kojaian that he was resigning from the company’s board of directors to avoid, “any actual or apparent conflicts of interest in connection with his fiduciary duties with respect to his affiliated companies in commercial transactions with the company,” according to a filing with the SEC.

Kojaian’s affiliated companies include Michigan-based Kojaian Holdings LLC, Kojaian Management Corp. and Kojaian Ventures LLC, which all are Grubb & Ellis clients, according to CoStar Group. It reported that Kojaian owned approximately 32.8 percent of the company’s common stock as of March 28, 2011.

On Jan. 6, the New York Stock Exchange delisted Grubb & Ellis from its exchange, which, according to the SEC, constitutes a “fundamental change” in the company’s preferred stock. That entitles stockholders to redeem 110 percent of the stock’s cash value plus dividends, which the SEC reported is worth a total of $111.4 million.

Grubb & Ellis’ common stock is now trading under the symbol “GRBE” on the OTCQB marketplace, which is operated by OTC Markets Group.

With BGC’s acquisition of commercial real estate firm Newmark Knight Frank last year, there has been speculation that BGC is attempting to challenge global real estate firms like Colliers, CBRE, Jones Lang LaSalle and Cushman & Wakefield.

“I know they have aspirations, but to get to a global platform takes a lot of time, a lot of energy and a lot of capital,” Kotansky said. “I don’t know where they are in that formula … I don’t think anybody knows what they’re doing quite yet.”

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Stayton SW Assisted Living, the senior living provider formerly known as Sunwest Management, is poised to come out of bankruptcy as a slimmed-down company after it offloaded 132 of its retirement communities.

The company sold the communities to a joint venture of Seattle-based Emeritus Corporation, Blackstone Real Estate Advisors and Columbia Pacific Advisors. The purchasing team bought the communities for $1.2 billion, made up of cash, securities and assumed debt.

Daniel Baty, chairman and co-CEO for Emeritus, said the transaction will bring 9,200 residents and 5,900 employees to the Emeritus family. The purchase is a big step in the company’s plans for growth over the next several years, he said.

Sunwest at its peak owned more than 270 retirement communities and properties. With the purchase, Emeritus owns operates 460 communities in 44 states.

As part of the deal, Emeritus put down 5.8 percent of the cash on the purchase, making up $19 million. The company is also in the process of purchasing another 12 communities from Sunwest, but the deal hasn’t been finalized yet.

The sale is part of Sunwest’s restructuring plan resulting from the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing last year.

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A U.S. District Court Judge in Eugene on Tuesday signed off on the sale of 149 assisted living communities by the Oregon-based Stayton SW Assisted Living, formerly Sunwest Management.

While the deal hasn’t officially closed, a partnership between the Seattle-based Emeritus Senior Living and the equity firm Blackstone Group bid $1.3 billion for the properties in a bankruptcy auction earlier this year. The 149 properties are located across the country.

“We (Emeritus) are pleased with the judge’s ruling and anticipate closing the Sunwest transaction during the third quarter, upon which we would begin managing the communities included in the joint venture,” said Liz Brady, spokesperson for Emeritus.

The potential sale is part of Sunwest’s restructuring plan resulting from the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing last year. The partnership will assume $1 billion of Sunwest’s debt and will pay the additional $300 million in cash and securities.

The thousands of investors left hanging since Sunwest filed bankruptcy will have the option to receive cash or take shares in the new company that will take over the senior homes.

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The owner of the Lehman Hot Springs Resort in Ukiah was fined by the Department of Environmental Quality today, a week after he filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

John Patrick Lucas was fined $532,275 for wastewater violations at the resort. Last week, he escaped a Umatilla County Courthouse auction of the property by filing for bankruptcy protection

DEQ and the Environmental Protection Agency announced last year that a sewage lagoon at the property was leaking 21,000 gallons of sewage each day into the Warm Springs Creek, which connects to other Oregon rivers and streams. This made up about $500,000 of the fine. The rest resulted from Lucas’ operating a wastewater disposal system without a permit and operating a wastewater treatment system without a certified operator.

According to DEQ director Dick Pedersen, the DEQ tried several times to work with Lucas, but Lucas never corrected the violations. The DEQ determined that $337,400 of the penalty represents the economic benefit Lucas gained by not correcting the violations, he said.

DEQ and Lucas also entered into a judgment in May to get the property up to code. Lucas can either empty the upper and lower lagoons at the site and make any necessary repairs to the system by Sept. 30, or he can empty the lagoons and nearby sewer lines and close the site by Oct. 8.

In the Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing, Lucas’ corporation, Lehman Development Corporation, owes $929,000 in principal and interest to various creditors and another $2,100 in attorney fees.

Lucas couldn’t be reached for comment.

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Salpare Bay LLC, the firm that attempted to develop the Salpare Bay condominiums on Hayden Island, on Monday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of Oregon. The filing comes a day before the un-built 204-unit condominium project was to be auctioned off on the steps of the Multnomah County Courthouse.

Michael DeFrees, a Battle Ground, Wash.-based developer, is the owner of Salpare Bay LLC. Salpare Bay holds an 85 percent ownership stake in the failed condominium project.

Construction on the Salpare Bay condominiums stalled in 2007 when the general contractor, J.E. Dunn Northwest, quit the project after not being paid for four months of work. The auction was intended to satisfy a $4.4 million dollar judgment stemming from the lost wages. But the bankruptcy filing will stall the auction while Salpare Bay LLC negotiates with its creditors.

According to the bankruptcy filing, Salpare Bay LLC has between 50 and 99 creditors.  The firms three biggest debts include $510,109 owed to Stoel Rives for attorney fees, $85,000 owed to Campbell Crane of Portland in trade debt and $61,854 owed to the Bellevue, Wash.-based Team Builders JLC for trade debt.

DeFrees is being represented by the Portland attorney Farleigh Wada Witt. The un-built Salpare Bay condominiums are located at 499 N.W. Tomahawk Island Dr. on Hayden Island in Portland.

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