Bizjournals Green

North Pacific Group, once Oregon’s third-largest private company, is gearing up to possibly liquidate what little remains of its assets.

McGrath’s Fish House closed one of its three Valley restaurants last month as part of its Chapter 11 reorganization plan.

The bankruptcy of Kobra Properties is winding down, with auctions of five properties this week on the courthouse steps in Placer and Sacramento counties, and more auctions on the way.

Creditors are trying to force Gloucester Engineering Corp., a significant player in the plastics industry for almost 50 years and one of the last large manufacturers standing on Cape Ann, into bankruptcy.

Sky King Inc., a charter airline founded by former Sacramento Kings co-owner Gregg Lukenbill, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.

John Hancock’s track record as a commercial real estate lender is getting a beat down in Motown. A cluster of loans backed by Detroit-area industrial properties are poised to rack up losses more than a decade after being originated by the John Hancock Real Estate Finance Group (JHREF). In particular, five loans with a total current balance of $46.2 million have gone through foreclosure or have become seriously delinquent, according to reports filed by the bank trustee on the loans.

Two parties are suing a Travis County man who they said misled them into tying their money up in an Oregon firm, which was accused separately of diverting $66.5 million.

Cord Camera is still in the picture.

World Color Press Inc. management first approached Quad/Graphics Inc. in August 2009 about a potential deal to merge the companies, according to information outlined in hundreds of pages of federal regulatory filings.

A German-based landscape architecture company is opening a studio in Portland, its first site in the United States.

Projects to upgrade the nation’s electric system got a boost from the Internal Revenue Service, which ruled that corporations won’t have to pay taxes on Smart Grid Investment Grants.

Salt River Project will buy power from the second phase of the Dry Lake Wind Power Project in northeastern Arizona when the facility is completed in the next year.

Placer County is launching a $33 million program to help property owners install energy efficient technology.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Sacramento District has awarded a $1.26 million federal stimulus contract to install solar electricity systems at nine park and dam operations in California.

The Georgia House of Representatives Thursday gave final passage to a comprehensive water conservation bill, one of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s top priorities for the 2010 legislative session.

Hanesbrands has been named the Energy Star 2010 Partner Agency of the Year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a recognition of its energy conservation programs. The company will be presented with the award today.

To expand its scope of smart-grid services, Black & Veatch has acquired Enspiria Solutions Inc., a consulting and systems-integration company based in Denver.

The University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in New York will receive $1.5 million to fund an incubator program for new clean energy companies.

As Hillsborough County commissioners on Wednesday selected text for a proposed November referendum question on a sales surtax for transit, the business community ramped up its efforts to evangelize on its behalf.

Builders of the new 1800 Larimer office building in downtown Denver said Wednesday that they expect to get a LEED Platinum certification for the structure soon after it’s finished this spring. (XEL)