Rivercrest Purchases Country Creek Property

    Rivercrest Construction Associates Inc. has bought 23 lots in Country Creek Subdivision from ATD GA LLC for $1.2 million. In addition, Rivercrest filed 15 mortgages totaling $3.5 million through eight lenders: FirstBank, Bank of Bartlett, Pulaski Bank & Trust Co., First Tennessee Bank, Oakland Deposit Bank, BancorpSouth, Community Bank and First Citizens National Bank. North of Brother Boulevard between Appling Road and North Germantown Parkway, Country Creek was approved June 1 for 68 lots on 21.04 acres.

New Publication Showcases Younger, Hipper Content

    On Sunday, Minority Media USA LLC published the first copy of The Memphian, its free newspaper focusing on Memphis' black community.
    A tabloid , The Memphian will be published every Sunday and will be available at more than 100 locations throughout the city, including Kroger stores, Mapco Express gas stations, the Isaac Hayes Nightclub & Restaurant in Peabody Place Downtown and Christian Brothers University.
    T. Anthony Milan, who owns the publishing company, also is the CEO of Minority Media and editor of The Memphian. He previously worked in the marketing department at the local Salvation Army. His business partner, Sidney Mendelson, is the owner of La Prensa Latina, a paper that focuses primarily on the Memphis-area Hispanic community.
    The Memphian has been in the works for nearly two years as Milan and Mendelson conducted research to determine if there was a market for it. The Tri-State Defender, one of the longest continuously published black papers in the South, is its main competitor.
    "The difference with The Memphian is it's a younger, more aggressive, more contemporary and more society-driven newspaper," Mendelson said.
    The Memphian will cover news, sports, social life, education, entertainment and more. Its first cover story is "Growing Up Ford: The Ophelia Ford You Never Knew."
    The newspaper office, which currently shares office space with Mendelson & Associates at 995 S. Yates Road, will employ 10 people.

Chandler Data Show Rise in Home Sales

    Shelby County residential sales were up 27 percent in May compared to April, according to the latest analysis from real estate information company Chandler Reports, www.chandlerreports.com. There were 2,404 residential sales in May and 1,182 in April.
    Areas such as Cordova and Lakeland, which have shown steady growth in the first quarter 2006, continued to see increased sales.
    The 38016 ZIP code in Cordova had 157 total home sales in May, compared to 119 in April. The average sales price for a home in that ZIP code during May was $178,399, up slightly from $172,321 the previous month.
    The 38002 ZIP code in Lakeland and Arlington saw 128 sales in May, up from 116 in April. The average sales price for homes in that ZIP code was $253,224, up from $248,993 the previous month. To read more about home sales, see Page 5's editorial and companion pieces.

FedEx Launches Program For High-Tech Customers

    On Tuesday, FedEx Corp. announced the launch of its Critical Inventory Logistics Program, which will enable some of its customers to use the FedEx network of services to ship products much faster.
    The service will focus on customers in telecommunication, semiconductor, biomedical and other high-technology industries, said Carla Boyd, media relations representative for FedEx Corp.
    Customers will be able to use FedEx Kinko's locations to store products such as pacemakers so when the need arises to ship them quickly, they will be sent immediately.
    "Really, what's going on is we're using our Kinko's network and FedEx Express locations - they call them forward-stocking locations - so customers can either keep them there or we have a hub facility in Memphis that can get things out very quickly," Boyd said.
    The logistics program will allow customers to deploy replacement parts at FedEx Kinko's centers throughout the United States, including several 24-hour locations.

Veteran Business Reporter Adds Experience to Daily News Staff

    Beginning with today's issue of The Daily News, a fresh look permeates the pages of the 120-year-old newspaper that's served as the premier source of local business, legal, financial, real estate and government news.
    Along with that, the newspaper has instituted other changes behind the scenes, such as the addition of veteran business journalist David Yawn to the newspaper's management ranks. Yawn, who most recently worked in the marketing department of the law firm of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz PC, is the new associate publisher and executive editor of The Daily News.
    From his nearly 12-year stint as a Memphis-area news reporter to the years he ran his own communications firm and worked for such corporate giants as FedEx and International Paper, Yawn brings a rich tapestry of experience that touches nearly every corner of the journalism and publishing worlds.
    "Part of my mission is to help the business community rediscover the newspaper, both online and in print, because it does offer so much content," said Yawn, whose career has taken him from industry tours of pharmaceutical sites in Puerto Rico to distribution facilities in Indianapolis.
    At The Daily News, Yawn will be coordinating the work of four departments - circulation, editorial, marketing and advertising.
    In the mid-1980s, he was part of a WMC-TV panel that discussed the establishment of a Memphis hub by Northwest Airlines. His professional memberships, both past and present, include the National Association of Real Estate Editors, the International Association of Business Communicators and the Society of Professional Journalists.
    "There's great potential here at The Daily News, and I think a lot of the business community needs to re-visit the merits of our paper, both in terms of advertising and reading," he said. "I'll be working to augment all of those efforts and to work with our teams to bring them to a new level."