D1 Sports Facility Sells for $800,000

     The 17,150-square-foot D1 Sports Training of Memphis facility in Cordova has sold for $800,000. W.B. Sports of Memphis LLC sold the property at 860 Herbert Road to Marvin E. Orr and Stacey J. Neel, who then transferred the property to Gameday Properties LLC.
     Gameday Properties is affiliated with Gameday Baseball, which operates a Cordova sports complex adjacent to the Herbert Road facility.
     The warehouse was built in 2001 and sits on .67 acres on the east side of Herbert Road north of Fischer Steel Road. Sale deeds list the property address as 7800 Fischer Steel Road.
     W.B. Sports of Memphis bought the property from Sports Complex LLC in March 2005 for $750,000. The Shelby County Assessor's 2007 appraisal was $526,100.
     D1 Sports Training of Memphis operates the facility with a 60-yard indoor artificial grass field, weight room and therapy room, among other amenities, according to the company's site.
     Representatives of Gameday Baseball were not available for comment.
     

County Commission To Discuss Peabody Place

     A resolution will be heard today at the Shelby County Board of Commissioners that would require City Council and commission approval in the future of specific Peabody Place projects that receive property tax breaks in the form of payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreements.
     Also on the agenda is the first reading of an ordinance discussed in committee meetings last week to make agendas, resolutions, minutes and other records of meetings available in real time on the Internet.
     The board also will vote on a resolution approving money from the Office of Preparedness for the fiscal year 2007-2008 in the amount of $420,000. The money will go to Global Security Systems LLC for Alert FM, a regional FM-based emergency communications system for the Memphis and Shelby County Urban Area Security Grant Initiative.
     The meeting begins at 1:30 p.m. in the Shelby County Administration Building at 160 N. Main St.
     

Two More Foreclosures Filed Against Alexanders

     Two first-run foreclosure notices for properties owned by Charles Alexander and Patricia Alexander appear starting on Page 27 of today's Daily News.
     The property owned by Charles Alexander that is facing foreclosure is 785 Ledbetter Ave., which was mortgaged in 2003. Patricia Alexander is named as the owner of the second property, 801 N. Holmes St., which was mortgaged in 2004.
     Oakland Deposit Bank is listed as an interested party in the Ledbetter Avenue property.
     Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. is the owner and holder of both debts. Both properties are scheduled for foreclosure sale April 11 at noon at the southwest Adams Avenue entrance of the Shelby County Courthouse.
     More than 50 foreclosure notices have been filed against properties owned by the Alexanders since the middle of February. For more information on the previous foreclosure notices, visit www.memphisdailynews.com.
     

Luminetx Signs Distribution Contracts

     Luminetx Corp. has signed the first international distribution contracts for its signature product, the VeinViewer by Luminetx, which positions the company to begin overseas commercial shipments as early as the next few weeks.
     Deals have been brokered with three international distributors to date - Pacific Medical Inc., which will target select countries in Asia; Sanitas covering Turkey; and The Golden Triangle Organization, which will target countries in the Middle East. Demo units already have been shipped to the distributors, and Luminetx representatives began earlier this month spending two weeks conducting on-site product training with the companies.
     Through these initial relationships, which are performance management-based, hundreds of units already have been ordered for the selected countries, the company said.
     Luminetx's distributors will serve as a turn-key representative of the company in the international marketplace and will sell, service, demonstrate and market the VeinViewer product.
     

MPA Leader Can Participate In Contract Negotiations

     It took a federal court order, but the president of the Memphis Police Association now can participate in contract talks with the city of Memphis.
     Last week's ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Hardy Mays is the latest chapter in the testy relationship between police brass and the newly elected leadership of the police union.
     The contract talks, which began in February, are under an April 2 deadline for agreement or the declaration of an impasse.
     Mays granted a preliminary injunction in the police union's lawsuit against the city. The lawsuit claims the city has violated the constitutional rights of MPA president Lt. Gene Hulley in a dispute that centers on whether a lieutenant, who is considered a supervisor and part of management, can lead the union or should be forced to take a demotion in rank.
     The MPA and Hulley sought a narrowly tailored injunction that would permit Hulley to caucus with the union's bargaining team at contract talks. The larger issue is still to be resolved at a scheduled trial.
     Hulley showed up at the first contract talks last month. The talks are open to the public. But when he attempted to caucus in private with the union's team, police brass ordered him not to.
     They also ordered Hulley to leave a get-acquainted session the night before the contract talks began in which the two teams met informally. Union leaders are not always members of the bargaining team, and bargaining teams usually include individuals who are not members of the particular union.
     

Consumer Prices Post Best Reading in 6 Months

     Consumer inflation, which had been pushing relentlessly higher, posted its mildest reading in six months in February as the costs of energy and food moderated. The relief was expected to be short-lived, given that energy prices have resumed their upward climb.
     The Labor Department reported Friday that consumer prices were unchanged last month, a much better performance than the 0.3 percent gain that had been expected.
     Core inflation, which excludes energy and food, was also well-behaved, with an unchanged reading in February following a worrisome 0.3 percent jump in January.
     The better-than-expected February inflation reading likely will be reversed in coming months, considering the big surge in energy prices in recent weeks. Crude oil hit a record high last week above $110 per barrel and gasoline pump prices jumped to a national record of $3.28.
     But for February, energy prices posted a 0.5 percent decline with gasoline prices falling by 2 percent, the biggest drop since last August.
     Food costs, which have been surging, also moderated a bit, rising by 0.4 percent following a huge 0.7 percent jump in January.
     The price of vegetables, fruit, poultry and pork all declined. But the price of cereal and bakery products shot up by 1.8 percent, its largest monthly increase since January 1975. Part of the rise in food costs reflects higher energy prices that raise transportation costs. Also food prices have been under upward pressure because of the increased demand for corn to use in the production of ethanol.
     Clothing costs, which had risen for five straight months, posted a 0.3 percent decline in February while the cost of new vehicles was down 0.3 percent and airline fares fell by 0.3 percent. The decline in airline tickets was expected to be short-lived in view of rising energy prices.
     The cost of medical care posted a small 0.1 percent increase in February as doctors' fees actually fell. However, medical care, the fastest-rising price category outside of energy, is still up by 4.5 percent over the past year.
     

Bank of Bartlett To Use BizMark Software

     The Bank of Bartlett will begin automating its small business loan-deciding process using Cypress Software Systems LP's BizMark software.
     The Bartlett-based bank is expanding its presence in small business lending and said it wanted to use a proven, automated software to help its commercial lending department efficiently manage loan applications.
     The bank will use BizMark to create a centralized loan underwriting and decisioning process for loan applications at its eight branches throughout the Memphis area.
     North Richland Hills, Texas-based Cypress created the BizMark software to automate the small business loan application procedure, as well as the decisioning process. Lenders using the software can handle a variety of small business loan products, including commercial credit requests for lines of credit, term loans, corporate leases and corporate credit cards.
     The BizMark program works by gathering principal and financial statement data, retrieving and interpreting consumer and business credit reports, performing ratio analyses and scoring the final results.