Henry Hutton LLC Closes On I-55/Shelby Drive Land
Henry Hutton LLC has bought 35.3 acres in Southbrook Office Park from Southland Development Partners of Memphis for $1.9 million. The deal closed Thursday.
The 13-parcel tract is bounded by Interstate 55 to the east, Millbranch Road to the west and Shelby Drive to the south. Riverbrook and Lakebrook drives run through the acreage.
The Shelby County Assessor's 2007 combined appraisal was $579,000.
Chuck Hutton Toyota is slated to move its dealership from 1710 E. Brooks Road to the new property, according to media reports last year. Henry Hutton is president of Chuck Hutton Toyota.
Calls to Hutton's office were not immediately returned.
Foreclosure Notices Filed On Alexander-Owned Properties
Ten first-run foreclosure notices have been filed on properties owned by Charles W. Alexander. The notices appear beginning on Page 29 of today's Daily News.
SunTrust Mortgage Inc. is the owner and holder of mortgages for six of the foreclosed properties, Residential Funding Corp. is the owner and holder of three and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. is the owner and holder of one.
The addresses of the properties are 2428 Dexter Ave., 945 Person Ave., 1493 Oaklawn St., 3828 Longfellow Road, 75 E. Gage Ave., 2169-2171 Marble Ave., 39 W. Dempster Ave., 1443 Emmason St., 662 Eads Ave. and 1170-1172 Breedlove St.
Seven of the 10 properties are scheduled for sale March 6 at the southwest Adams Avenue entrance of the Shelby County Courthouse. The remaining three lots are scheduled for sale March 13 at the same location.
All of the properties are subject to a tax lien filed by the Internal Revenue Service on Oct. 30, 2006, for $1,247.10.
Loans for all the properties were taken out in late 2005, with the exception of the Eads Avenue property, which had a loan taken out from Residential Funding Corp. in June 2006.
Alexander is listed on the Tennessee Secretary of State Business Information Web site as the registered agent for ASIC Inc., a real estate brokerage company in Collierville. Calls to ASIC Inc.'s office were not answered.
Alexander's address on the Secretary of State's site, 494 N. Hollywood St., is shared by Great American Homes of Tennessee Inc., although that number has been disconnected.
3 Memphis Engineering Firms Enter Excellence Competition
Memphis engineering firms EnSafe Inc., Parsons Transportation Group and Pickering Firm Inc. have entered projects in the statewide 2008 Engineering Excellence Awards competition sponsored by the American Council of Engineering Companies of Tennessee. The entries from the Memphis firms are among the projects entered in the competition by engineering firms across Tennessee.
EnSafe entered two projects in the competition. The firm's first entry, "Metal Management: Engineering Revitalization," was completed for Metal Management Inc. in Nashville. EnSafe's second entry is a Wetlands Investigation Study completed for the United States Navy's Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southeast in Pensacola, Fla.
Parsons Transportation Group entered the competition with its project for the historic renovation of the Market Street Bridge in Chattanooga, Tenn. The project's client was the Tennessee Department of Transportation.
Pickering Firm's project entry is for inbound roadway improvements at the Memphis International Airport completed for the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority.
An independent panel of judges will review all the entries and determine the winners of the 2008 Engineering Excellence Awards. The winners will be announced March 4 in Nashville.
FedEx Offers New Web Service
FedEx Corp. will now provide users of the e-mail application Microsoft Office Outlook the ability to connect directly to FedEx shipping services.
The application, FedEx QuickShip, is an add-in that utilizes Web services to provide fast and easy access to FedEx shipping functions.
With the FedEx add-in installed, Microsoft Office Outlook users will be able to generate labels, track packages, check rates, schedule pickups and find FedEx drop-off locations while still inside their Outlook 2003 or 2007 e-mail application.
Countrywide Aims to Help More Subprime Borrowers
Under pressure to help stem growing home loan defaults, Countrywide Financial Corp. said it will expand programs to help borrowers manage their mortgage payments regardless
of the type of subprime loan they have or whether they already have fallen behind on payments.
The latest initiative, brokered with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, calls for Countrywide to try to manage payment plans for borrowers that already are behind in payments, regardless of which type of subprime loan they have.
Full details of the initiative had not been disclosed as of press time Monday.
Initial plans to disclose the deal were postponed last month after Calabasas, Calif.-based Countrywide agreed to be acquired by Bank of America Corp. for $4.1 billion in stock.
Countrywide, the nation's largest mortgage lender and home loan servicer, has sought to address the growing number of defaults on its books by modifying loan terms, working out long-term repayment plans and other actions. The company said last month it helped more than 81,000 borrowers keep their mortgage payments manageable in 2007.
The company also was among the lenders who agreed to a Bush administration-proposed agreement to freeze rates on some subprime mortgages for five years.
Those efforts focused on borrowers with adjustable-rate mortgages that still were being paid but set to adjust to higher monthly payments.
Some 6.96 percent of the 9 million loans in Countrywide's servicing portfolio were delinquent as of Dec. 31, up from 5.02 percent in December 2006.
About 1.04 percent of the mortgage loans, or 93,961, were pending foreclosure, up from 0.65 percent.
Constitutional Scholar To Speak About Justice Scalia
It's been about two months since U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke to members of the Memphis Bar Association.
This Friday, members of the Memphis Lawyers chapter of The Federalist Society will have the chance to hear about Scalia from a constitutional scholar who wrote a book about the justice's legal philosophy. Professor Ralph A. Rossum will speak at 11:45 a.m. Friday at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, 3715 Central Ave., room 310. The program is free.
Rossum holds the Salvatori Chair in the American Constitution at Claremont-McKenna College in Claremont, Calif. His book, "Antonin Scalia's Jurisprudence: Text and Tradition" was published in 2006.
Rossum was an assistant and associate professor of political science at the University of Memphis from 1973 to 1980. During the summer of 1987, Rossum and Scalia taught a course on the founding of America at the University of Aix-Marseilles Law School in France.
Cohen to Host Foreclosure Workshop
U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., will host a foreclosure assistance workshop this weekend at the Renaissance Center Boys and Girls Club at 990 College Park Drive off Walker Avenue.
The workshop, which will be held Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon, was set up to give confidential and objective advice to homeowners concerned about rising mortgage costs and the possibility of foreclosure. Counselors will be on hand to meet with homeowners one-on-one to discuss their situation.
BBB of the Mid-South Re-Elects Officers
The Better Business Bureau of the Mid-South has re-elected its current officers to serve in 2008.
Martha Perine Beard, senior branch executive of the Memphis Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, has been elected chairwoman.
Other officers include first-vice chairman Pierre Landaiche of Memphis Cook Convention Center; second-vice chairman Randy Lewis of FedEx; treasurer Marty Kiser of Kiser's Floor Fashions; and secretary Greg Paule of First Tennessee Bank. Hal Lansky of Lansky Brothers serves as immediate-past chairman.