Owner Files $10 Million Loan on DoubleTree Hotel

GP Memphis LP has filed a $10 million loan through Goldman Sachs Mortgage Co. on the DoubleTree by Hilton Memphis hotel at 5069 Sanderlin Ave. in East Memphis.

The hotel owner, listed by the Shelby County Assessor of Property as Garden Plaza Hotel Co. III, filed the loan Oct. 24, although it wasn’t recorded by the Shelby County Register of Deeds until this week.

Built in 1986, the 163,040-square-foot hotel sits on 4.94 acres along the south side of Sanderlin Avenue east of South Mendenhall Road between the Mendenhall Commons and Sanderlin shopping centers.

The assessor’s 2012 appraisal of the hotel is $8.9 million.

The DoubleTree has 266 rooms and 5,681 square feet of meeting space, according to the website of Cooper Hotels, the Memphis-based firm that owns the hotel under the GP Memphis limited liability company.

Cooper Hotels, whose president and CEO Pace Cooper signed the trust deed, owns a variety of branded hotels in seven states.

Source: The Daily News Online & Chandler Reports

– Daily News staff

Ubiquiti Honored As Fast Growing Company

Ubiquiti Networks Inc., the technology company founded by new Memphis Grizzlies owner Robert Pera, has been ranked 70 on the Technology Fast 500 from Deloitte & Touche LLP, a list that ranks the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America.

Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2007 to 2011.

In a statement, Pera said the honor is a testament to the strength of the company’s product offerings and the value of its high performance communications technology solutions “at disruptive price points.”

– Andy Meek

Hilton Worldwide Celebrates Global Week of Service

Hilton Worldwide is celebrating its first annual Global Week of Service this week – more specifically, from Nov. 11 through Nov. 18.

During that time, Hilton Worldwide team members around the world have been participating in hundreds of volunteer projects. On Nov. 13, about 100 volunteers from Hilton Worldwide partnered with Volunteer Mid-South at Alpha Omega Veterans Services, working to create a community gathering center at the AOVS Court Street veterans’ residential facility.

During the week of service, about 300,000 Hilton Worldwide team members across 90 countries and territories will participate in hundreds of hands-on volunteer projects and events across 3,900 communities.

In the Memphis area, events taking place include team members assembling Thanksgiving dinner bags and hygiene kits and reading to children at Sea Isle Elementary School, team members delivering meals to MIFA and cleaning up McKellar Lake.

– Andy Meek

Children’s Heart Foundation Given $15,000 for Relocation

The International Children’s Heart Foundation was awarded a $15,000 commercial office grant Wednesday, Nov. 14, by the Center City Development Corp. to move its offices from 1750 Madison Ave., suite 500, to Downtown’s Brinkley Plaza, 80 Monroe Ave., suite G-1.

The nonprofit organization plans to sign a 10-year, 9,204-square-foot office lease at Brinkley Plaza and have its 12-person staff (11 full-time) occupy it in January. The estimated costs of tenant improvements, to be provided by Chris Woods Construction Co. Inc., are $49,085.

The CCDC is a board of the Downtown Memphis Commission. The commercial office grant program was created in 2009 to increase the number of office tenants Downtown, matching up to 50 percent of the cost of tenant alterations contingent upon a five-year lease.

Montreal-based Olymbec USA LLC bought Brinkley Plaza in October for $7.2 million from Sanderlin Place and Brinkley Plaza II Partnership, entities related to CB Richard Ellis Memphis and Loeb Properties Inc. CB Richard Ellis Memphis handles leasing and management of the 219,557-square-foot, 10-story tower.

The International Children’s Heart Foundation also considered Lipscomb & Pitts Building, 2670 Union Ave. Extended, and the 2400 Poplar Building, both owned and managed by Lake Worth, Fla.-based In-Rel Properties Inc. and leased by Cushman & Wakefield/Commercial Advisors LLC.

– Sarah Baker

ArtsMemphis Awards Education, Outreach Grants

ArtsMemphis has awarded $283,150 to 27 arts education and outreach projects – an ambitious new funding effort designed to help local arts organizations bring arts projects to underserved neighborhoods in the Memphis area and to use the arts as an agent for social change.

The recipients are: Audio Theater for the Visually Impaired, Ballet Memphis, Blues City Cultural Center, Buckman Performing and Fine Arts Center, Circuit Playhouse Inc., Collage dance Collective, Cotton Museum and Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum, Creative Aging, Levitt Shell, Hattiloo Theatre, Memphis Acoustic Music Association, Memphis Brooks Museum, Memphis College of Art, Memphis Cultural Arts Enrichment Center, New Ballet Ensemble and School, Playback Memphis, Project: Motion, RiverArtsFest, STAX Museum of American Soul Music/STAX Music Academy, Temple Israel Museum, Tennessee Shakespeare Co., Metal Museum, The Orpheum Theatre, Theatre Memphis and Visible Music College.

The grants are part of the $3.3 million ArtsMemphis plans to distribute to arts and cultural organizations during 2012-2013. Many arts education programs will be held at community centers, nonprofit agencies, parks and libraries.

ArtsMemphis also allocated funds for arts organizations to host Pop Up ArtsFests, free neighborhood arts festivals that bring performances and activities by arts and culture organizations to the inner-city streets of Memphis.

– Sarah Baker

Funeral Services Set for Lansky

Funeral services for Downtown clothing store owner Bernard J. Lansky will be Friday, Nov. 16, at 11 a.m. at Baron Hirsch Synagogue, 400 S. Yates Road.

Lansky, the owner of Lansky at the Peabody and Lansky Brothers, which he founded with his late brother Guy Lansky, died Thursday, Nov. 15, at the age of 85.

He and his brother opened Lansky Brothers clothing store in 1946 on Beale Street, a storefront that is now noted with a historical marker.

Lansky was best known nationally and internationally as the clothier who outfitted Elvis Presley before Presley became a worldwide entertainment phenomenon and continued to cloth Presley as he became famous. When Presley made his historic first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on television, he was wearing a Lansky Brothers suit.

Presley was one of many entertainers, black and white, who bought stage and street clothes from Lansky Brothers, often on credit terms that were tailored to the tenuous finances of the entertainment industry.

When the store opened on Beale Street, the street was not a tourism entertainment zone but a collection of nightclubs as well as a business center for touring musicians coming through the city.

By the 1970s, Lansky had gotten into the big and tall men’s clothing business.

He continued to work until recent years as the family business moved into The Peabody hotel with a clothing line that spans generations.

– Bill Dries

Bernanke: Banks’ Standards Hurting Economy

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says banks’ overly tight lending standards may be holding back the U.S. economy by preventing creditworthy borrowers from buying homes.

Bernanke says some tightening of credit standards was needed after the 2008 financial crisis. But he says “the pendulum has swung too far the other way.” He says some qualified borrowers are being prevented from getting home loans.

Bernanke comments to an audience in Atlanta came on a day when it was reported that the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage fell to a record low of 3.34 percent. Rates have been low all year but have fallen further since the Federal Reserve started buying mortgage bonds in September to encourage more borrowing and spending.

– The Associated Press