Briefs
by John Temple Ligon

New time, new location, new name
 
The Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce until
recently held its Breakfast at Sunrise at Seawell's on
Rosewood on the second Thursday of every month. The
occasion is still the second Thursday of the month, but it
is lunch, and it is at the Brookland Baptist Community
Center on Sunset Boulevard in West Columbia. The first
lunch will be August 9. The Chamber needs a name for
the event, those who wish to participate may email Erin
Granger at egranger@columbiachamber.com by July 31.

Rare find

On June 29, USC's Thomas Cooper Library acquired a rare
medieval manuscript at Sotheby's in London. It was written
in 1269 by Italy's Order of the Cistercians. The B. H.
Breslauer Foundation of New York City contributed
$45,000 for the purchase.

Hines site cited with foresight

The Hines- Sumisei U.S. Core Office Fund purchased the
27- story Charlotte Plaza office tower at 201 South College
Street in June. The seller was the California State
Teachers Retirement System. Financial terms of the transaction
were not disclosed. Now that the Texas- based Core
Fund has invested in uptown Charlotte, downtown
Columbia could be the subject of some similar window
shopping if its office occupancy rates pick up. For the
second quarter this year, Charlotte posted the nation's
lowest office- vacancy rate, 3.08 percent. Midtown
Manhattan's office- vacancy rate for the same period was
4.8 percent. In downtown Columbia, according to
ColliersKeenan, the office- vacancy rate is 10.5 percent.
But the impending evacuation of the Palmetto Center by
SCANA in 2009 is expected to weaken the market, lowering
the values of surrounding office properties.

Cheap dollar, cheap property purchases

London investment group Grosvenor (as in London's
Grosvenor Square, home of the American embassy)
bought 1.5 million square feet of Durham warehouses for
$105.5 million last month, twice what the seller paid two
years ago. The cheaper dollar is raising international
interest in U.S. properties. Five years ago, a $10 million
U.S. building would cost about $19.6 million in Australian
currency, according to Raleigh's News & Observer.
Currently a $10 million U.S. building might cost only
$11.5 million in Australian currency.

Update on US Airways

US Airways says the first quarter of this year was one of
its worst. US Airways serves Columbia, and its largest hub
is Charlotte. The carrier ranked last in on- time performance
of all U.S. airlines for March through May of this
year. A share of stock in US Airways has fallen about 40
percent in the last year. In the last week, mutual fund firm
Fidelity Investments sold 32 percent of its stake in US
Airways. Fidelity's position in US Airways fell from 11.7
million shares, 12.8 percent of the airline, to 7.9 million
shares, or 8.65 percent of the company's shares. Fidelity
has $1.2 trillion in assets under management.

Housing

According to NAIAvant, the seven- county Columbia
housing market has 321,000 housing units for a population
of 736,000. About 86 percent of the units are
single- family homes.

N.C. cigarette taxes rise by $157 million

Since N.C. cigarette taxes went up to $ .35 a pack on July
1, 2006, the state's additional tax take for the year was
$157 million. In S.C., with the nation's lowest cigarette tax
at $ .07 a pack, there's no expectation for gains in the tax
take, particularly when cigarette sales appear to be falling
nationally at an annual rate of two percent. In Congress,
the debate for an increase in federal cigarette taxes, currently
$ .39 per pack, is bolstered by the need to fund
children's health insurance. S.C. might consider a special
tax on lung cancer treatments, a local growth industry.

Small business haven

Orlando, Fla., according to bizjournals Website, is the
nation's top market for small business growth. Among the
75 markets ranked, Springfield, Mass., is the worst, the
75th. Columbia is 47th; Charlotte, 20th; and Raleigh, 6th.

Parish disgraced

S.C. Lowcountry's disgraced economist Al Parish saw his
collection of personal and business assets sell at public
auction for $2.35 million, hardly enough to cover his
clients' losses of more than $55 million.

Cheap skates

The U.S. Department of Agriculture guaranteed the 2001
loan when Iceland Irmo funded its ice skating rink near
the Peak exit off I- 26. The USDA disclosed recently a sale
in the works for the 41,000- square- foot building, a deal
expected to maintain the facility as an ice rink. Financial
details of the deal were not disclosed, but Columbia-
based real estate firm Wilson/Kibler listed the price at
$2.46 million.