CF Liquidator Concentrating on New Firm

ISSAQUAH, WA- William Vipond Jr., the man who oversaw the recently completed $397-million liquidation of Consolidated Freightways’ real estate portfolio, can now focus on growing his company, Cross-Dock Development. Vipond tells GlobeSt.com that in addition to traditional development services, his firm will also provide live auction services for real estate dispositions, a method he says was successful in netting CF $61 million more than the market appraisal of its portfolio.

For the auction side of the business, the one-time litigator turned real estate attorney turned commercial real estate broker says he has become the regional affiliate of Tranzon LLC, a national auction firm. “The auction format sells the asset ‘As Is, Where Is,’ with all contingencies waived and due diligence completed prior to the auction,” says Vipond, adding that in his experience the process helps “expedite the timeline and increase the returns” for all product types.

As an example, Vipond says he recently helped a family trust in Sacramento, CA, sell 526 acres of raw land. Previously the family had been offered $3,000 per acre by several prospective buyers. Through the auction process, Vipond secured approximately $20,000 per acre totaling approximately $10.5 million for the trust.

On the development side, Vipond says he is now leading several new development projects. He and his partner are currently converting 38 apartments to condominiums in Issaquah. The project, called Issaquah Village, is located at 755 5th Ave NW near Gilman Village. Construction and pre-sales have begun through Williams Marketing.

In conjunction with two local Seattle development partners, Cross Dock also is in the process of purchasing a 700-acre golf course community in Pearce, AZ. The community, which is located 65 miles east of Tuscon, will include a golf course, hotel, office, multi-family and single-family homes. The partnership plans to direct the site plan of the community and sell parcels to homebuilders, he says.

Vipond also recently purchased a small office building in the commercial core of downtown Issaquah. Formerly known as the Swanson Architects Building, the property is located at 90 NW Dogwood Street and serves as the headquarters for Cross-Dock Development. The for-lease portion of the building houses the Northwest headquarters of Premier Financial Services of Scottsdale, AZ. Eventually, Vipond expects to redevelop the site with a residential-over-retail project.

Vipond used to be a part of Transportation Property Co. a company specializing in cross-dock development that exclusively represented CF in the disposition of its surplus real estate portfolio and has done work for most of the major trucking companies. “When CF went bankrupt, we had to go through the process of getting rehired and eventually were appointed by the judge to handle the liquidation,” he says. “We sold 226 properties in about 28 months; it was pretty hectic.”

Transportation Property Co. is still up and running in San Diego. Vipond relocated to the Northwest to assist in the liquidation of CF’s Northwest properties, which were slow to sell. He launched his new business about 18 months ago, but hadn’t been able to focus on it until the CF liquidation was completed in August.

“We were approached by most of the major auction companies after they saw our success,” he says. “We went with Tranzon because they have 13 different geographic locations and every company they were affiliated with was an industry leader in some form of property auction; we come in as industrial specialists.”