Cypress RE Fund Buys Perkins BYB Property

Memphis-based realty investment fund Cypress Realty Holdings has bought Back Yard Burgers’ property at 436 Perkins Road Extended for $1.2 million.

Cypress, working under the name Cypress Realty Holdings Co. II LLC, purchased the property from Realty Income Corp., financing it with a $690,000 loan through Financial Federal Savings Bank.

Built in 1998, the 2,700-square-foot fast-food restaurant is on three-quarters of an acre on the east side of Perkins Extended north of Poplar Avenue. The Shelby County Assessor of Property’s 2011 appraisal was $875,000.

Realty Income, based in Escondido, Calif., bought the property from the Nashville-based burger chain in a $1.1 million sale-leaseback in November 2007. Realty Income transferred that lease to Cypress in conjunction with this month’s sale. The lease runs through November 2027 with the option to extend it twice for 10 years each.

Cypress Realty Holdings, whose headquarters are on Colonial Road in East Memphis, buys Class A to Class C+ assets – primarily net-leased shopping centers and industrial projects valued at $12 million or less – according to its website.

Among its Memphis holdings are Laurelwood Collection on Poplar Avenue between Perkins Extended and Grove Park Road; Parkway Place shopping center at the northeast corner of Germantown Parkway and Cordova Road; and Parkway Place Office center directly to the east of the shopping center. Out-of-town holdings include The Avenue Webb Gin mall in Atlanta and Jackson Columns shopping center in Jackson, Tenn.

Cypress’ fund managers are Price Ford and Joseph Jarratt.

Source: The Daily News Online & Chandler Reports

– Daily News staff

Radians Files Permit App for Distriplex Warehouse

JSR Properties LLC, an entity related to Radians Inc., has filed a $1.4 million building permit application with the city-county Office of Construction Code Enforcement for construction of a 36,085-square-foot warehouse addition to an existing Radians facility, according to The Daily News Online, www.memphisdailynews.com.

JSR Properties in September bought the 92,390-square-foot, Class A warehouse at 5305 Distriplex Farms Drive and 7.1 acres to the west of it from Illinois-based DFS Services LLC for $3 million.

Radians, a Bartlett-based supplier of a line of safety products such as protective eyewear, withdrew its application in September for an eight-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) benefit with the retooled Memphis-Shelby County Industrial Development Board.

– Sarah Baker

Archaeology Conference to be Held in Memphis

The Society for American Archaeology’s 77th annual meeting will be held April 18 to 22 at the Memphis Cook Convention Center, 255 N. Main St.

The conference will open with the president’s forum, “Archaeology and the Media: A Symbiotic Relationship.” The session will include science journalists and archaeologists in an exploration of what works, what doesn’t and how to improve the relationship.

The panelists will include prominent archaeologists and journalists from The Washington Post, National Geographic magazine, Science, Archaeology Magazine and National Public Radio.

Other sessions will cover art, feasting, plants and animals, burial practices, forensic archaeology, hunter-gatherers, cave excavations, paleoindians and pre-Clovis sites, and will showcase the use of geographic information systems, new excavation practices and new data-handling methods.

– Taylor Shoptaw

Kooky Canuck Joins StiQRd Businesses

Downtown Memphis burger joint Kooky Canuck has joined the family of businesses using stiQRd, the program from a Memphis-based startup that aims to replace paper-based loyalty cards with a QR code-based system.

Kooky Canuck, 97 S. Second St., is rewarding its customers with $10 gift cards on their 10th visit to the restaurant.

To earn the card, customers must download the free stiQRd app with their iPhone or Android phone then scan the unique bar code at Kooky Canuck every time they come in. After the 10th scan, the app alerts the customer they’ve earned the card, which they will get after showing restaurant staff the message.

Fifteen other businesses now use the stiQRd loyalty program.

– Andy Meek

State Workers Rally Against Civil Service Changes

State employees are speaking out against Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s proposal to dial back civil service protections, arguing that the move could result in cronyism.

Members of the Tennessee State Employees Association gathered outside the Capitol and the main state office building in Nashville on Tuesday to protest the bill that would make it easier for the governor to hire and fire state workers.

The measure would eliminate rules that allow bumping and retreating, which association officials say removes seniority as a prime protection for state employees when layoffs are deemed necessary.

Robert O’Connell, the association’s executive director, argued that the changes would allow for hiring decisions to be made for political reasons rather than on the basis of experience.

– The Associated Press

US Consumer Confidence Roughly Flat in March

Americans’ rosy outlook about the U.S. economy remains resilient as they focus on the good in the barrage of conflicting economic news.

A widely watched barometer of consumer confidence barely budged in March after last month hitting the highest level it had been in a year. Americans continued to be upbeat in March despite mixed economic signs. The stock market is up, but gas prices are, too. Unemployment is falling, but home prices also are declining.

Lynn Franco, director of private research group The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, said consumers “feel the economy is not losing momentum.”

The Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index fell slightly to 70.2. That’s down from a revised 71.6 in February – the highest level it’s been since the same month in 2011.

Consumer confidence has made a recovery since it fell to an all-time low of 25.3 in February 2009. But the March reading is below the 90 reading that indicates a healthy economy. The index hasn’t been near 90 since December 2007.

Economists watch consumer confidence closely because Americans’ spending on things from clothing to health care accounts for about 70 percent of the nation’s economic activity.

One gauge of the Consumer Confidence Index, which measures how shoppers feel now about the economy, rose to 51.0, from 46.4 in the previous month. That measure now stands at the highest level in more than three years. But the other barometer, which assesses shoppers’ six-month outlook, declined to 83.0 from 88.4 in February.

– The Associated Press

Walgreen Profit Slides Nearly 8 Percent

Drugstore operator Walgreen Co.’s fiscal second-quarter earnings fell almost 8 percent due in part to its decision to leave the Express Scripts pharmacy network, but the performance still topped analyst expectations.

The nation’s largest drugstore chain said Tuesday its net income dropped to $683 million, or 78 cents per share, in the three months that ended Feb. 29. That compares to $739 million, or 80 cents per share, a year ago.

The Deerfield, Ill., company said the Express Scripts split and a mild flu season trimmed its earnings by a combined 10 cents per share.

Revenue climbed less than 1 percent to $18.65 billion from $18.5 billion a year earlier.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected, on average, earnings of 77 cents per share on $18.57 billion in revenue.

Express Scripts, a St. Louis-based pharmacy benefits manager, had paid Walgreen to fill prescriptions, but the companies let a contract between them expire at the end of last year after months of talks failed to produce a new deal. Walgreen has said this would hurt its performance during the current fiscal year.

Pharmacy benefits managers, or PBMs, run prescription drug plans and use large purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices.

– The Associated Press