Airport Business Park Sells for $4.7 Million

A group affiliated with a Dallas-based commercial real estate financing company has acquired Airport Business Park at a significant discount.

CRE ABP Memphis LLC, which is affiliated with Dallas-based Gearing Capital Partners Inc., bought Airport Business Park from Allegiance Realty Corp. for $4.7 million, according to a Jan. 21 warranty deed.

Founded in 2005, Gearing Capital is a corporate real estate debt specialist, according to the company’s website.

Charlotte, N.C.-based Allegiance, operating under the names Airport Business Park Office Investment LLC and Memphis Office Investment LLC, bought the office park in 2007 for $13.8 million from Memphis Airport Inc., which was affiliated with LaSalle Investment Management Inc. That purchase was financed with a $14.2 million loan through CBRE Realty Finance Holdings IV LLC.

The eight-building park is north of Democrat Road east of Airport Business Park Road and west of Lamb Place. The buildings total 260,000 square feet and sit on about 25 acres.

The deed said eight buildings were included in the sale but lists only seven addresses: 2842 and 2815 E. Business Park Road, 2980 and 2890 Democrat Road, and 2815, 2847 and 2869 Business Park Road.

Source: The Daily News Online & Chandler Reports

– Amos Maki

Trezevant Selects New Chief Operating Officer

Kent Phillips has been named chief operating officer of Trezevant, a continuing care community at 177 N. Highland St. in Memphis. Phillips has more than 25 years of experience in managing retirement communities.

Prior to his new role at Trezevant, Phillips he served as COO of Virginia Baptist Homes in Richmond, Va.

Phillips will work closely with Trezevant’s current CEO, John Webb, who is planning to retire before the end of the year. Upon his retirement, Phillips will succeed Webb, transitioning into the role of Trezevant’s CEO.

Under Webb’s leadership, which spanned 14 years, Trezevant underwent a $120 million renovation and expansion project that doubled the size of the campus and its capacity.

– Don Wade

Weddle-West Recommended As Memphis Provost

Karen Weddle-West has been recommended as the new provost at the University of Memphis by University President David Rudd.

Rudd announced Monday, Jan. 26, his recommendation to John Morgan, chancellor of the Tennessee Board of Regents, who will make the decision.

The provost position has been open since Rudd was selected president of the university last year.

Weddle-West had been serving as interim provost since Rudd became president. Before that, she had been vice provost for graduate studies.

– Bill Dries

Welch Allyn Acquires Hubble Telemedical

Welch Allyn Inc. has acquired Hubble Telemedical Inc., a privately held health care company founded by University of Tennessee Health Science Center researcher Edward Chaum and Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher Kenneth Tobin, who developed a way to provide remote diabetic retinopathy screening and analysis in primary care doctors’ offices and other convenient settings.

Chaum, Plough Foundation Professor of Retinal Diseases and the acting director of research for the UTHSC Hamilton Eye Institute, and Tobin, director and a corporate research fellow of the Electrical and Electronics Systems Research Division at Oak Ridge, worked together on the technology to help save the sight of diabetic patients, particularly those with low incomes and a lack of access to regular vision screenings.

Hubble Telemedical offers real-time screening and diagnosis services for diabetic retinopathy, the most common diabetic eye disease and a leading cause of blindness caused by changes in the blood vessels of the retina.

The technology was developed at UTHSC and Oak Ridge using federal and private grant funding and was commercially licensed to Hubble by UT-Battelle and the University of Tennessee Research Foundation. Hubble’s Telemedical Retinal Image Analysis and Diagnosis, or TRIAD, is a web-based telemedical platform that uses retina cameras to capture and securely transmit patient images for remote, expert physician diagnosis and validation.

– Don Wade

ECS Selects Peterson As Head of School

Dan Peterson is the new head of school for Evangelical Christian School at the start of the 2015-2016 school year.

Peterson succeeds Bryan Miller in the post. Miller has been head of the Cordova school for 14 years.

Peterson comes to Memphis from Regents School of Austin, Texas, where he was head of the School of Logic and middle school principal.

He earned his undergraduate degree at Carson-Newman College and earned a Master of Divinity in theology and a doctorate in leadership and Christian education from Southern Seminary of Louisville, Ky.

– Bill Dries

Plan Calls for Closing Some Trails in Old Forest

The state is planning to close some trails within the Old Forest of Overton Park in Memphis.

The Old Forest State Natural Area is owned by the city of Memphis and managed by Overton Park Conservancy under the guidance of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation’s Division of Natural Areas.

State law requires a management plan for the natural area that emphasizes the health of the ecosystem over recreational use. The Commercial Appeal reports the trail closings are among proposals in the draft management plan for the Old Forest. According to the plan, the dead-end trails, spur trails and cross trails are convoluted and redundant, and create visitor confusion. It also said some trails are used for illegal activity because they’re hidden.

– The Associated Press

IBM Disputes Report That Big Layoffs Coming

IBM is pooh-poohing a published report that the giant technology company is planning a big reorganization and massive job cuts affecting more than 100,000 people.

The company disclosed plans for some layoffs last week, but it says in a statement that they affect “several thousand people,” or “a small fraction of what’s been reported.”

That’s in contrast with a report that appeared last week on the website of Forbes magazine, which predicted as many as one in four IBM employees might lose their jobs in a massive shake-up called “Project Chrome.” IBM issued another disappointing earnings report last week that showed fourth-quarter revenue and net income had fallen.

The company says some workers will leave as IBM “rebalances” to make room for hiring about 15,000 workers with new skills.

– The Associated Press

Survey: Firms Optimistic On Hiring, Wages in 1Q

Rising sales helped boost hiring at U.S. businesses in the last three months of 2014, and companies are optimistic that continued improvement in business conditions will bring increased employment and wages in the current quarter, a new survey shows.

And many businesses expect the steep drop in oil prices in recent months to have a positive impact on them this year, according to the survey released Monday by the National Association for Business Economics.

Fifty-four percent of the 93 respondents to the quarterly survey said sales at their companies increased in the October-December period. That was up from 49 percent in the third quarter. As sales picked up, so did hiring. Thirty-four percent of companies responding said they hired more workers during the fourth quarter, about the same as in the second and third quarters.

Businesses said the outlook for the January-March period is strong. Fifty-one percent of respondents said they expect wages and salaries to increase at their companies – up sharply from 34 percent in the fourth-quarter survey. Thirty-six percent said they expect their companies to hire more workers, up from 31 percent previously. Only 7 percent of respondents expect employment declines at their companies in the first quarter.

– The Associated Press