Roller Properties Buys Lot For Car Care Center

Olive Branch-based Roller Properties LLC, the parent company of Cecil’s Automotive, has purchased for $695,000 a 1.01-acre lot on Houston Levee Road for a new full-service car care center. The sale took place Sept. 23. The seller was Kevin Hyneman of Kevin Hyneman Cos.

Hyneman confirmed he sold the lot to Cecil’s Automotive.

“They’re going to open up a full-service car care center,” Hyneman said.

The new center will be the company’s fourth Memphis-area location, and Hyneman said the company is looking to expand into Lakeland and Franklin, Tenn., within the next year.

“I’m also looking at sites for them in Cool Springs (Miss.,) so I think that would probably be next year,” Hyneman said.

Bradley Roller, a member of Roller Properties, declined to offer details on the project until the permits and other paperwork has gone through, but he did say “everything’s going good right now” on the Houston Levee project.

Roller Properties took out a $1.3 million loan from BancorpSouth Bank in conjunction with the sale. The maturity date on the loan is Oct. 5, 2010.

The lot, on the west side of Houston Levee Road, is zoned for commercial use. The Shelby County Assessor of Property’s 2009 appraisal of the land is $528,000.

Source: The Daily News Online & Chandler Reports

MLGW to Consider Paper Products Contract

The Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division board of directors is scheduled to take action today on a resolution awarding a five-year, $335,850 contract for paper products to Memphis Chemical and Janitorial Supply.

The item requires approval from the Memphis City Council.

Also today, the board is scheduled to take action on another resolution requiring City Council approval that would award a nearly $89,000 contract to B Four Plied Inc. to re-roof various MLGW buildings.

The MLGW meeting will begin at 3 p.m. in the board room of the MLGW Administration Building, 220 S. Main St.

Economy Shrinks Less Than Expected in Q2

The U.S. economy shrank less than expected in the second quarter as businesses and consumers trimmed their spending at a slower pace, buttressing beliefs that the economy is now growing.

The 0.7 percent dip in gross domestic product for the April-June quarter follows the 6.4 percent annualized drop in the first three months of this year, the worst slide in nearly three decades. In the final quarter of last year, the economy sank at a rate of 5.4 percent.

The new reading on second-quarter GDP, reported by the U.S. Commerce Department Wednesday, shows the economy shrinking less than the 1 percent pace previously estimated. It also was better than the annualized 1.1 percent drop economists were predicting.

The final revision of second-quarter GDP came on the last day of the third quarter, in which many analysts predict the economy started growing again at a pace of about 3 percent.

“Growth should be solidly positive,” said Mark Vitner, economist at Wells Fargo Securities.

Gross domestic product measures the value of all goods and services – from machines to manicures – produced in the U.S. It is the best estimate of the nation’s economic health.

A main reason for the second-quarter upgrade: Businesses didn’t cut back spending on equipment and software nearly as deeply as the government had thought. Consumers also didn’t trim their spending as much.

In the second quarter, consumers trimmed their spending at a rate of 0.9 percent. That was slightly less than the 1 percent annualized drop estimated a month ago, but marked a reversal from the first quarter when consumers boosted spending 0.6 percent.

Many analysts predict that consumer spending will move back into positive territory again in the third quarter. But worries linger that rising unemployment and still hard-to-get credit could crimp such spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of economic activity, and hobble the recovery.

Morrison-Newman Settles Into Role as County Trustee

Regina Morrison-Newman is winding down her legal practice and has yet to decorate her new government office.

Tapped this week by the Shelby County Commission to finish the term of County Trustee Paul Mattila – who died last month at age 65 after a struggle with lung cancer – Morrison-Newman sits behind a mostly bare desk in the trustee’s office she has yet to furnish extensively.

But in a recent interview, she tried to convey a reassurance that, despite a quick succession of now three trustees in two years, the flurry of meetings she’ll have soon and paperwork she’s diving through to learn about the office, no major changes are in the works.

“We work for the taxpayers,” she said. “And in this office, they’re here to pay taxes. We’re spending their money. Government is about the folks you’re serving. Not about you.”

$40M Land Purchase OK’d For Haywood Co. Megasite

A special subcommittee of the State Building Commission on Tuesday approved the acquisition of six square miles of mostly farmland in Haywood County to make up the West Tennessee Megasite.

The panel unanimously approved the $40 million land deal that previously had been delayed while economic development officials compiled a detailed map outlining the boundaries.

“It’s a big project, so it took some extra steps to get it done,” state Sen. Lowe Finney, D-Jackson, said after the vote. “But I’m confident it’s going to do some great things for West Tennessee.”

The Legislature earlier this year approved bonds to buy the land that officials hope will attract an industrial investor on the scale of Volkswagen in Chattanooga or Hemlock Semiconductor in Clarksville. Those investments are expected to exceed $1 billion each.

House Speaker Kent Williams, R-Elizabethton and a member of the panel, said it made sense to wait to give final approval even though the options were set to expire Oct. 31.

“There was some concerns that a lot of us had, but all of our questions were answered and all the ducks are in a row now,” he said.

Partners in Public Education Ceases Operations

Partners in Public Education (PIPE), a nonprofit organization founded in 1993 that has raised more than $20 million for initiatives to improve public education, has announced that it will cease operations because of diminished funding.

The organization operated with a $338,194 deficit for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2008, according to a report it filed with the Internal Revenue Service and posted at www.guidestar.org. PIPE, however, used money from its assets to cover the deficit. It had $1.76 million in assets as of June 30, 2008.

A report for the organization’s most recent fiscal year has not been posted.

Local Rotary District Offers Exchange Program

Rotary District 6800 will offer professionals an opportunity to visit South Korea as part of the Rotary Foundation’s Group Study Exchange program.

The program provides travel grants for teams to exchange visits in paired areas of different countries.

The exchange program to South Korea is open to fully employed professionals between the ages of 25 and 40 with at least two years of work experience in their fields.

For four weeks, team members will experience the host country’s culture and institutions, observe how their vocations are practiced abroad and develop personal and professional relationships.

Applications are due Oct. 16 and interviews are scheduled for Oct. 29 and Oct. 30.

For more information about applying, call District 6800 GSE Chairman Carl Awsumb at 355-3241.

Rotary District 6800 is comprised of Rotary clubs in Shelby County and Northern Mississippi.