Business Blog

A decision by Jackson City Council Monday (Dec. 19) to build a 16-floor, $96 million convention center hotel will hand Mayor Harvey Johnson a signature victory but a thumbs down from the council will give him a serious setback. The city put the deal on a fast-track to enable proposed development partner Transcontinental Realty Investments [...]

A three-year moratorium on cost of living allowances, or COLAs, for Mississippi’s retired public employees is a key recommendation of a report that will be released by Gov. Haley Barbour Wednesday. The moratorium recommended by a Barbour-appointed study commission could save the Public Employees Retirement System of Mississippi about $40 million annually for three years [...]

JACKSON — Brunini Grantham Grower and Hewes has proven there is more than one way to merge. In fact, the venerable Jackson law firm has pulled off a “non-merger merger.” Last month, it was announced that Brunini, founded in 1903, had been invited to join Meritas, a global network of independent, full-service law firms. The [...]

William Painter maybe the busiest man in Mississippi. The managing partner of the Jackson office of the law firm Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, P.C., he is also the Tennessee-based firms lead strategic planner. In the latter capacity, Painter has logged some serious hours recently. “I’m hammered,” Painter said. In 2011, Baker Donelson has [...]

Partnership between state’s academic medical center and for-profit hospital group could help keep more paying patients in state In response to rising healthcare costs and the uncertainty of federal healthcare reform, health care providers nationwide are consolidating, and academic medical centers and for-profit hospitals are entering into partnership agreements. The University of Mississippi Medical Center [...]

In its first year of operation, a convention center hotel in Jackson would achieve a revenue-per-available room rate more than double the current rate for Jackson’s downtown hotel market. That’s the ambitious projection of a market feasibility study done for potential hotel development partner Transcontinental Realty Inc. of Dallas and on which city officials appear [...]

Lack of a convention headquarters hotel has been blamed for the Jackson Convention hotel complex losing $12 million in business last year. But the 330,000-square-foot complex has lost far more meetings and convention business since its late 2009 opening for reasons other than available hotel space, a study by H.C. Johnson Consulting of Chicago found. [...]

When an initial market study for a convention hotel in Savannah, Ga., made rosy predictions for occupancy rates for the proposed 500-room hotel, the board that governs the city’s convention center responded with a “not so fast.” Like Jackson, Savannah has concluded that its convention center, known officially as the International Trade & Convention Center, [...]

By Stephen McDill Louisianan Deanna White says she didn’t visit  Mississippi much growing up. After a high  school trip to Clinton, she chose to enroll in  Mississippi College because she liked the  close-knit campus and wanted to follow four  of her relatives into the nursing field. There was only one problem. “I don’t like blood [...]

Today, there is a warning on the Mississippi Department of Transportation’s website about icy accumulation in North Mississippi. It is for the I-55 bridge over the Coldwater River in DeSoto County. However, it would appear that the really slick ice in DeSoto County is at the Southaven Mayor’s Office. >> SEE RELATED STORY FROM THE [...]