Second Family Dollar Site Sells Within One Week

Texas-based DCTN3 328 Highland Memphis TN LLC has bought retail property at 656 S. Highland St. for $1.3 million.

Marketplace Development LLC sold the building, which is leased to Family Dollar Stores of Tennessee Inc.

In conjunction with the purchase, DCTN3 328 Highland filed a $940,900 trust deed through Bank of the Ozarks.

The transaction comes one week after related entity DCTN3 330 Highway 61 Memphis TN LLC bought a Family Dollar site at 3390 U.S. 61 (South Third Street) from Marketplace Development for $1.1 million. (See above for details.)

Built in 2011, the 8,505-square-foot Class B building is on 0.6 acres at the northeast corner of South Highland Street and Spottswood Avenue. The Shelby County Assessor of Property’s 2011 appraisal is $417,600.

Marketplace Development bought the property in October 2010 from Circle K Stores Inc. At the time, a 1,012-square-foot vacant Circle K store was on the fenced-in lot.

A build-to-suit Family Dollar store was planned for the site when Marketplace bought it.

Source: The Daily News Online & Chandler Reports

– Daily News staff

Vance Residents to Meet, Discuss Future Plans

Residents, business owners, institutional representatives and civic leaders from the Vance Avenue neighborhood are invited to attend the upcoming meeting of the Vance Avenue Choice Neighborhood Initiative on Saturday, Feb. 4, at 2 p.m. at the St. Patrick Community Outreach Center, 277 S. Fourth St.

The purpose of the meeting is to elicit local stakeholders’ input on the physical redevelopment of the Vance Avenue neighborhood.

Residents have proposed five suggested approaches to improving the quality of the urban environment. Participants in the meeting will have an opportunity to discuss the benefits and costs of each of the strategies before indicating their preferences.

A full lunch and child care will be provided.

– Sarah Baker

U.S. Justice Unit to Probe Mortgage-Backed Securities

Federal and state law enforcement officials announced Friday, Jan. 27, that they have launched a fraud-fighting initiative to root out wrongdoing in the market for residential mortgage-backed securities.

Attorney General Eric Holder told a news conference that bringing full enforcement resources to bear will help expose abuses and hold violators accountable.

Residential mortgage-backed securities are the huge investment packages of what turned out to be near-worthless mortgages that bankrupted many investors and contributed to the nation’s financial crisis.

Appearing with Holder, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a co-chair of the initiative, said the effort will link state and federal probes of the mortgage-backed securities bubble.

The collapse in value of mortgage-backed securities resulted in unprecedented losses and “all of us” in law enforcement are dedicated to holding accountable financial institutions that lied and cheated and misled investors, said Robert Khuzami, director of the enforcement division at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

President Barack Obama disclosed the effort in his State of the Union address Tuesday, Jan. 24.

– The Associated Press

Four Memphis Museums Reaccredited Through 2026

The American Association of Museums has announced three Memphis museums have been reaccredited for 2011 through 2026.

The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, The Pink Palace Museum and the National Civil Rights Museum were accredited during the 2011 review cycle.

They join the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, which was reaccredited during an earlier review cycle.

Accredited status certifies that a museum has undergone a rigorous process of self-assessment as well as review by its peers, among other things.

– Andy Meek

CBU Reaccredited Through 2020

Christian Brothers University has been reaccredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools through 2020.

SACS is the recognized regional accrediting body in 11 Southern states and in Latin America for institutions of higher education that award associate, baccalaureate, master and doctoral degrees.

SACS accreditation permits faculty to compete for federally funded research grants and for students to have access to federally subsidized financial aid. It also means that other institutions recognize CBU courses.

– Taylor Shoptaw

Madison Hotel Offers Frequent Flyer Miles

The Madison Hotel is now offering frequent flyer miles for a variety of airlines through the hotel’s Worldhotels affiliation.

Guests will be able to earn a reward of 500 miles per stay on qualifying rates with 19 of the world’s international airlines, including American Airlines Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., US Airways Group Inc. and United Air Lines Inc.

Hotel patrons will be able to claim miles retroactively through the Worldhotels website.

– Taylor Shoptaw

Private Sector Unions Add Members as Jobs Return

Union membership grew slightly last year, giving labor leaders hope that a period of steep declines has bottomed out.

The number of unionized workers increased by about 50,000 to nearly 14.8 million members in 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, Jan. 27. The increase comes after unions lost nearly 1.4 million members over the previous two years.

Still, unions’ share of the overall workforce fell, from 11.9 percent to 11.8 percent, as state and local governments trimmed thousands of jobs to address budget shortfalls. That’s the lowest percentage of union workers since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Unions saw losses of about 61,000 workers in government employment. But they grew by 110,000 workers in the private sector, mainly in construction and health care. Despite that growth, unions still represent just 6.9 percent of all workers at private companies, unchanged from 2010.

Union membership has declined steadily from its peak of about a third of all workers in the 1950s, and about 20 percent in 1983. The losses have been especially steep in private industry with the loss of manufacturing jobs that traditionally are heavily unionized.

“It is telling that as our country begins to recover the jobs lost during the Great Recession, good union jobs are beginning to come back,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

As private sector union membership eroded, labor leaders turned increasingly toward workers in state and local governments, where there was often less resistance to organizing. About 7.6 million employees in the public sector belonged to a union last year, compared with 7.2 million union workers in the private sector. And public-sector workers had a membership rate of 37 percent, more than five times that of the private sector.

– The Associated Press

Chris Isaak Releases Album Recorded at Sun

Chris Isaak is returning to the roots of rock ‘n’ roll and doing it old-school: All in one take.

The U.S. soul singer headed back to the original Sun Studio in Memphis to record a collection that includes cover versions of hits by Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. The album, “Beyond the Sun,” was released last week and Isaak will soon embark on a string of U.S. concert dates.

The 56-year-old, well known for his mesmerizing vocals on the now-classic 1989 hit “Wicked Game,” says the decision to make the new album was easy.

To make it truly authentic, Isaak and his band recorded with no headphones, no separate takes, just everyone listening to each other and going with the flow.

Sun Studio, the record label owned by Sam Phillips, launched the careers of some of the greatest U.S. singer/songwriters — including Elvis, Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison.

The first single will be “Live It Up.”

– The Associated Press