The News Tribune Business Team will keep you updated on what's happening in the South Sound and beyond. Check here for news about economic development, aerospace, shopping and much more.
Talk to us
Got something to say? Here's the place to say it. We welcome your comments on what's going on in business in the South Sound that we should be discussing, reporting or analyzing here on our blog or in the pages of The News Tribune.
Contributors
Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
- All
- Aerospace (1477)
- Banking (179)
- Commercial Real Estate (145)
- Consumer Alert (28)
- Downtown Tacoma (225)
- Economic Development (273)
- Employment/Workplace (283)
- Food (32)
- General (1920)
- Labor (178)
- Port and trade (275)
- Residential Real Estate (77)
- Restaurants (145)
- Retail (63)
- Shopping (320)
- Technology (133)
- Tourism (742)
- Your view (7)
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| << < | Current | > >> | ||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | ||
- October 2009 (59)
- September 2009 (83)
- August 2009 (109)
- July 2009 (98)
- June 2009 (107)
- May 2009 (108)
- April 2009 (124)
- March 2009 (100)
- February 2009 (95)
- January 2009 (112)
- December 2008 (100)
- November 2008 (101)
- More...
XML Feeds- jevats
- preserve
- Guest Users: 388
LAS VEGAS – When Blimpie, the submarine sandwich franchise, opens a new shop at East 224th Street and Meridian Avenue in Graham, I can say I witnessed the genesis of the idea.
The International Council of Shopping Centers annual conference starts in Sin City Sunday. But the dealmakers didn't wait that long to start talking. They didn't even wait until they arrived here where an expected 44,000 developers, commercial real estate brokers, retailers and restaurateurs meet in the city's largest conference of the year.
At 6:45 this morning at SeaTac Airport's gate D11, I waited for an Alaska Airlines flight. I bumped into there Jeff Lyon, president and CEO of the real estate brokerage GVA Kidder Matthews, and Bob Levin, manager of the City of Tacoma's Private Capital Division.
As we chatted about each of our conference plans, a large man sitting in the waiting area stood up. "Excuse me," he said, "but I couldn't help overhearing."
The large man was David Hepner, the Pacific Northwest area developer for Blimpie. He was on his way to the Las Vegas conference to talk with brokers about his company's big push to site multiple Blimpie franchises from Olympia to the Canadian border.
Lyon immediately suggested some retail pads under development at one of the main intersections in Graham and told Hepner he'd provide his contact information to one of the GVA Kidder Matthews brokers.
The dealmaking here will include relatively modest matches between strip malls and franchises such as Blimpie. But it also will involve megadeals between companies such as Simon, owners of the Tacoma Mall, and some of the world's largest retailers.
