Despite nursing shortage, students must wait in line By Holly Burns Although Karen Nielsen applied for Trident Technical College’s associate’s degree nursing program last October, she won’t see the inside of a classroom until spring 2005.
Second low fare airline considers Charleston By Sarah G. McC. Moïse Rick DeLisi, director of corporate communications for Atlantic Coast Airlines and the soon-to-be-launched Independence Air, says Charleston is high on its list of potential destinations.
Liquor auditor makes splash by cutting bar losses By Dennis Quick Last year, Island Grill & Sports Bar owner Ashley Thompson realized just how much of her beer and liquor revenues got poured down the drain.
QUICK NOTES: Noisette master plan a case study in city-building By Dennis Quick Master makeover. The Noisette Co.’s master plan, a comprehensive, 137-page, 11-inch by 17-inch book outlining North Charleston’s rebirth, recently was presented to the North Charleston City Council and posted on Noisette’s web site (www.noisettesc.com). The council will spend the next several months reviewing the plan and then decide either to accept or reject it.
E-savings: Grocers take customer loyalty programs online By Sarah G. McC. Moïse Harris Teeter has added new electronic services to its customer loyalty VIC (Very Important Customer) card. E-VIC users can see what’s on sale each week via the computer as opposed to having to read the grocery inserts in the newspaper. This free service e-mails sale information to customers on items they typically purchase. From the e-mail, customers can create printable shopping lists to take with them to the store.
WORKING: To apologize or not to apologize? That is the question By Aleigh Acerni If you’ve never made a mistake at work, you are truly a rare employee—or else your faux pas is just waiting to make its proper entrance. For those of us that are admittedly less than perfect, however, mistakes at work, while not necessarily commonplace, can still cause you to feel less like a professional and more like a kindergartener on the first day of school.
‘Who’s who’ on the Aviation Authority board By Sarah G. McC. Moïse Low fare travel has been a hot topic of recent headlines, but few people outside the aviation community know what role the Charleston County Aviation Authority plays in the expansion of local air services. Who is on the government-appointed board and what is their mission?
High housing costs fueling remodeling boom By Dennis Quick As Seaside Construction LLC manager David Crawford looks ahead through 2004, he sees his home improvement and remodeling business hammering through the year at a fast and steady pace.
BEST PRACTICES IN CONSTRUCTION: Selecting a design firm is key to project success By Tom Frisby Minoru Yamasaki, designer of the World Trade Center, said during its design: “As I learned to understand the purpose of the project, it became clear that the Trade Center, with its location facing the entry to New York harbor, could symbolize the importance of world trade to this country and its major metropolis and become the physical expression of the universal effort of man to seek and achieve world peace.”
Freddie Mac expects brisk 2004 for real estate By Renee Johnson Rising family income coupled with low mortgage rates are two critical ingredients for a strong housing market that are expected to be at work in 2004, according to Freddie Mac’s latest economic forecast.
EXIT Realty receives award for innovative recruitment By Holly Burns Beating out staunch competition, national company EXIT Realty, which has 27 offices in the Carolinas, has won a prestigious 2003 “Champions of Industry 300” award, and will be featured in Forbes magazine later this year.
ERA survey finds seniors defy real estate perceptions By Renee Johnson A recent survey conducted by ERA Real Estate highlights some real estate trends and opinions among seniors that may contradict certain long-held assumptions about this growing market segment.
Home sales hot at new Johns Island subdivisions By Dennis Quick Last June, the Business Journal reported on The Villages in St. John’s Woods, a rising 130-acre residential neighborhood on Johns Island. It’s a quiet, heavily wooded development—hence the name—whose property owners are mostly young families and retirees. At that time only about 20 houses had been built in the development’s first phase, with five of the 71 lots remaining to be sold.
RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE NEWS: National Economy stronger, real estate softer in 2004 - A growing economy will help to sustain strong home sales in 2004, but housing activity isn’t likely to match last year’s record, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Conservation easements create value for land developers By Sarah G. McC. Moïse There is growing interest in the development sector in learning how adding to the quality of life in the Lowcountry can also add dollars to the developer’s bottom line.
“More developers are aware of the benefits of putting easements on property,” says Will Haynie, director of the Lowcountry Open Land Trust. “They get tax benefits and good public relations. And people are realizing when property is placed under conservation easement, the value of the adjacent property goes up, because the natural beauty and the vista is preserved.”
S.C. feels pinch, not squeeze of overseas outsourcing By Renee Johnson While overseas job outsourcing is leaving a trail of unemployed Americans and empty office buildings and factories nationwide, South Carolina is one of 10 states providing sufficient incentives and competition to keep from incurring similar losses.
Johns Island retail village to offer sea island shopping By Dennis Quick Next year, Kiawah and Seabrook island residents will be able to shop for food and clothing closer to home instead of driving to downtown Charleston and elsewhere. They and their Johns Island neighbors soon will have a locale where they can not only shop but gather at restaurants, watch an outdoor concert or just plain spend time with one another.
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE NEWS: National More A/E firms shift health care costs to workers - Architecture, engineering, planning, and environmental consulting firms are becoming more and more likely to require employees to contribute to health insurance premiums, a new report shows.
REITs yield 4th straight year of record returns By Margaret Edwards For the fourth straight year, real estate investment trust, or REIT, stocks outperformed Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
The National Association of Real Estate Investment Trust’s (NAREIT) Composite Index posted a total return of 38.5% last year, its biggest gain since 1976. REITs outperformed the S&P (at 28.6%) by almost 10% and the Dow Jones (at 25.3%) by nearly 13%.
LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP: Drawing lifeís lessons from the world of art By Jack Hoey There are many ways to describe how we live our lives. An article I read a few weeks ago compared our lives to a blank canvas. Each of us creates his or her life, as a painter creates a work of art, day by day, one brushstroke at a time.
GPS reduces overtime, cuts costs By Sarah G. McC. Moïse Spending money to save money is just what the city of Charleston is doing to make their workforce more efficient, cut operating costs and keep track of their assets. In June 2003, Mike Metzler, the city’s deputy director for operations, public service, added GPS technology to the fleet of garbage trucks and reduced overtime by 20%.
HOT STUFF: Start your engines: Pros pick top online info source By Honor Hawkins Last October, Aberdeen, Md.-based web marketing firm WebAdvantage polled professionals throughout the country to find out which search engine they turn to for business-related research. Curious to compare the local trend to the national one, the Business Journal polled randomly selected readers on their preferences. Here’s what we learned.
New site swaps unwanted gift cards for cash By Holly Burns For hundreds of parents, friends and co-workers who weren’t sure what to buy that difficult person on their list this holiday season, a gift card proved the ultimate solution.
Think before you ink: Tattoo removal on the rise By Holly Burns If you’re ruing the day you got the name of your first (and second and third) girlfriend tattooed inside a heart on your bicep, chances are you’re not alone. Though no hard numbers exist for tattoo removals, medical professionals are reporting an increase in patients seeking to get rid of them, according to a recent CNN report.
TIME WELL SPENT: Ready to abandon your resolutions? Try this first By Honor Hawkins Last issue, productivity specialist Jane Taylor of Priority Management shared her insights into setting effective goals. Now, she tells us how to plan each day
so it becomes a launch pad for goal achievement.
West Ashley enjoys surge of retail construction By Dennis Quick For nearly a decade Harrell Square, a retail and office plaza at the corner of Sam Rittenberg Boulevard and Orleans Road in West Ashley, was a stagnant piece of commercial real estate. Then a year ago, owner Bob Harrell Sr. gave Mount Pleasant-based architects Smith Gerber McClure & Assoc. and West Ashley construction outfit Complete Building Corp. the green light to give the property a makeover and a new life.
S.C. MONTHLY OUTLOOK: Dept. of Commerce names Small Business Ombudsman Chuck Bundy, a senior staff member in the Business Solutions Division, has been appointed the state’s Small Business Ombudsman. Bundy will serve as an initial contact for entrepreneurs who are looking for assistance or support from business experts. He will match these small business owners with the appropriate resources, either within or outside of the Commerce Department.
SALES MOVES: Why are you trying to tell me what I don't want to know? By Jeffrey Gitomer Walking through the airport a few months ago I passed one of those backlit advertising billboards. Half of it was black, half of it was white. The message read, “At Ernst & Young this is the only way we see ethics.”
