Retirement Cos. Continues Work on Collierville Facility

Memphis-based Retirement Companies of America LLC has taken another step in its plan to bring a retirement development called The Farms at Bailey Station to South Houston Levee Road in Collierville.

The company last week transferred 2.68 acres of property in the Ballard Property Outline Planned Development from one entity, Luke Inc., to another, PSALMS Inc., for $1.1 million. The company owns 36 acres in the area and plans to develop a sprawling development community on the site.

Company founder and president Charlie Trammell said the development will have a price tag of “considerably more than $100 million.” The company, which has been working on the retirement community for four years, has received the requisite approvals from the city of Collierville, and hopes to begin site work and the construction of a model center within the next two months.

The model center will give potential residents a glimpse of life at the facility. Trammell said the company will aim to make 120 presales before beginning construction of the main building. That should start in the spring, with the total build-out lasting 18 months to two years.

The Farms at Bailey Station will have multiple components, including a 259-unit apartment building, room for 63 single-family homes, a 60,000-square-foot commons area (within the apartment building) and a medical clinic.

The commons area will feature a food court, a theater, a performing arts center, a library, a health club and pool, a bank, beauty shops, a gift shop and a financial center.

The retirement community will sit on the east side of South Houston Levee Road. It is north of the 9.8 acres where Life Time Fitness Inc. of Chanhassen, Minn., developed a health club. Retirement Companies of America also owns 10 acres south of this development (behind the Life Time Fitness facility) where the company plans to build a medical complex with a nursing home, an assisted-living facility, an Alzheimer’s center, a medical office building and a physical/occupational rehab area.

The first phase will be composed of roughly half of the apartments and half of the single-family houses.

Trammell said The Farms at Bailey Station will resemble Kirby Pines Estates on Kirby Road near Tenn. 385 but will be a little smaller. That facility is owned by PSALMS Inc., the nonprofit entity related to Retirement Companies of America, which handles the development and management side of the business.

This most recent transaction was part of a 25.89-acre parcel that Luke Inc., whose principal is Rudy Herzke, bought for $2.7 million in 2006 from Houston Levee Partners.

Source: The Daily News Online & Chandler Reports

– Eric Smith

Wharton Orders Cameras At Memphis Animal Services

One of the first official actions responding to last week’s temporary shutdown of the city animal shelter – and subsequent investigation of allegations of animal cruelty – comes to fruition today in the form of camera installations.

Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. announced Friday, the day after control of the Memphis Animal Services was turned back over to the city, that cameras will be installed there as early as today. Their broadcast feeds will be viewable by anyone with an Internet connection.

It’s a reaction to last week’s raid on the shelter by Shelby County Sheriff’s deputies, who were responding to a tip called in to Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons’ office alleging animal abuse and cruelty at the shelter.

– Andy Meek

Former Bartlett City Attorney McCrary Passes Away; Services Held Today

George D. McCrary III, former city prosecutor, city attorney and municipal judge for the city of Bartlett, died Thursday in home of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 66 years old.

McCrary received his juris doctorate from the University of Tennessee School of Law in 1970, and in 1979 opened his Bartlett-based private practice.

For 35 years, McCrary served in the Bartlett court, and at times during the city prosecutor’s tenure from 1974 to 2000, he was also city attorney, during which time he was noted for codifying the city’s ordinances.

McCrary was serving his second full term as one of Bartlett’s municipal judges. He was appointed by the city’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen in 2000 before winning the judicial race for the position later that year. In 2008, he was re-elected.

Bartlett’s City Charter says Mayor Keith McDonald must first declare a vacancy on the bench, and then will recommend a new judge to the aldermen, who must approve the mayor’s nomination.

Services will be held today at 11 a.m. at Bartlett Station Municipal Center, with burial to follow at Memory Hill Gardens. The family requests in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (www.pancan.org).

– Rebekah Hearn and Bill Dries

Sept. Pending Home Sales Rise 6.1 Percent

The volume of signed contracts to buy previously occupied homes rose for the eighth straight month in September as buyers scrambled to take advantage of a tax credit for first-time owners that expires at the end of this month.

The National Association of Realtors reported Monday its seasonally adjusted index of sales agreements rose 6.1 percent from August to 110.1, the highest reading since December 2006 and more than 21 percent above a year ago. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected the index would be level at 103.8.

Typically there is a one- to two-month lag between a contract and a done deal, so the index is a barometer of future sales.

Completed home resales rose in September to the highest level in more than two years as buyers scrambled to complete their purchases before the first-time homebuyers tax credit of up to $8,000 expires Nov. 30.

Congress is moving to extend the credit to buyers who sign sales agreements by April 30. Lawmakers also want to add a $6,500 credit for buyers moving into other homes as long as they have been living in their current residence at least five years.

With foreclosures continuing to surge, “an extended and expanded tax credit would help absorb this incoming inventory,” Lawrence Yun, the Realtors’ chief economist, said in a statement.

Pending sales were up 10 percent in the West, 8 percent in the Midwest and 5 percent in the South. The Northeast saw a 2 percent drop in pending home sales.

– The Associated Press

State AIDS Drug Assistance Reaches Enrollment Capacity

The Tennessee Department of Health on Monday announced people who sign up for the state AIDS Drug Assistance Program now will be put on a waiting list because the program has reached enrollment capacity.

As of June, enrollment had reached 3,367 people with funding at $25.3 million. At the same time last year, enrollment totaled 2,706. The state will seek federal funding to handle the increased demand for AIDS medicine assistance. People placed on the waiting list will be assisted in accessing HIV medications through pharmaceutical-sponsored patient assistance programs.

The program is seeing a higher demand for services because of increased testing efforts, rising unemployment among the HIV-infected and the growing number of uninsured citizens.

For more information on the state program, visit http://health.state.tn.us/STD/ryanwhite.htm or call the AIDS hotline at 1-800-525-2437.

– Tom Wilemon

Employee Program Renews Agreement with Medco

Medco Health Solutions Inc., the parent company of Memphis-based Accredo Health Group Inc., said Monday the Federal Employee Program has awarded a one-year extension of its three-year contract to provide mail service and specialty prescription drugs.

The contract, which has been in effect since Jan. 1, 2008, will now continue through Dec. 31, 2011. Under terms of the agreement, the company will provide pharmacy benefits for more than four million federal employees, retirees and their families. Accredo processes and ships the specialty prescription drugs.

– Tom Wilemon

AWA Marks 30 Years With Supreme Court CLE

The Association for Women Attorneys today will host Tennessee Supreme Court Chief Justice Janice H. Holder and Justices Cornelia A. Clark and Sharon G. Lee as part of its 30th anniversary celebration. The continuing legal education course will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Memphis Botanic Garden’s Hardin Hall, 750 Cherry Road.

During the first half of the CLE, the justices will address their personal journeys in helping Tennessee become one of three states with a female-majority Supreme Court (the other two are Wisconsin and New York).

Then the justices will present “Arguing and Writing Persuasively to the Tennessee Supreme Court” during the second half of the CLE.

The AWA’s CLE event co-chairs are Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Kay S. Robilio and attorney Laurie Christensen.

“I am so excited and proud to be a part of organizing this great event, honoring women,” Robilio said. “No, we still haven’t entirely broken the glass ceiling. But women, in the law and in other professions, really have made great strides.”

– Rebekah Hearn