Surry Business

Carol Hiatt has opened Shopper’s Paradise at 317 S. Franklin Road, a 4,000-square-foot former mill and warehouse across the road from Calvary Baptist Church of Mount Airy.

Shopper’s Paradise’s merchandise includes “thousands of furniture, decorative and household antiques that make up Carol’s vast collection,” according to an article by Brooke R. Corwin in the Dec. 11 edition of Surry Messenger. “It’s an eclectic mix, including everything from glassware and kitchen items to old trunks and chairs to handcrafted pencil sharpeners — all plucked from the shelves of auctions, flea markets and the old houses the Hiatts have restored.”

Carol and her husband, Steve Hiatt, purchased the building three months ago, originally planning to remodel it into a home. The Hiatts said they may remodel an upstairs space into an apartment for themselves in the future.

“I’ve realized this is where I’m supposed to be. It’s what I was meant to do,” Carol Hiatt told Corwin. “Before this I couldn’t find my niche in life. It took me a long time to realize what I’m most happy doing.”

Ticketmaster, the world’s leading ticketing company, plans to open 58 Ticketmaster retail ticket centers in Lowes Foods stores in North Carolina.

Fifteen Piedmont Triad-area Lowes Foods Ticketmaster locations will begin selling tickets on Saturday, Dec. 15, and the remaining locations will follow in early 2008.

Ticketmaster said tickets to events at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex, the Winston-Salem Sports and Entertainment Complex and other venues throughout the Carolinas and surrounding areas will be available for purchase seven days a week at selected Lowes Foods stores during normal hours of operation. None are in Surry County, where Lowes Foods has stores in Mount Airy, Dobson and Pilot Mountain, but Ticketmaster’s announcement only identified 32 selected stores (15 in the Triad, 17 in the Triangle).

“Having Ticketmaster outlets in our stores is another great way of providing added convenience for our customers,” said Gary Watson, vice president of business support for Lowes Foods. “Many of our customers enjoy going to events at local venues. This way, they can easily purchase tickets when they are at Lowes Foods without having to make an additional special trip.”

“Through our agreement with Lowes Foods, fans of sports, music and other live entertainment will be better served by a greater number of retail locations for purchasing tickets,” said Sandy Gaare Sr., vice president of ticket centers for Ticketmaster. “Ticket Centers in Lowes Foods stores throughout the Triad and the state of North Carolina will offer consumers convenient access to purchase tickets to the events they want to attend and learn about new events coming to the area.”

The outlook for hiring in the Winston-Salem Metropolitan Statistical Area is the worst since 1996, Richard Craver reports today in the Winston-Salem Journal.

Previewing a Manpower Inc. Employment Outlook quarterly report, Craver writes, “Just 7 percent of employers in (Davie, Forsyth, Stokes and Yadkin counties) say they plan to add staff in the first quarter…. The last time that the local hiring projection was so low was the fourth quarter of 1996…. Twenty-three percent of local employers expect to reduce their work force — the same as the fourth quarter of 2007.”

“The economy and the weak dollar have shaken some employers to the point of being gun-shy when it comes to hiring, especially considering most employers’ most controllable expense is employees.” Matt Stadler, the manager of Manpower’s office in Winston-Salem, told Craver. “We’re also seeing more people willing to stay in the job they’re in, even as employers are expecting more from them as they operate with less staff.”

The survey found that the best job prospects are in the service sector. Employers in construction, durable and nondurable-goods manufacturing are the most likely to eliminate jobs.

“The area continues to brace for major job cuts from several area employers pursuing cost savings through outsourcing and offshoring information,” Craver wrote. “A short list includes Aon Corp., BB&T Corp., Dell Inc., GMAC Insurance, Reynolds American Inc. and Wachovia Corp.”

The survey area does not include Surry County, but thousands of people from here work there daily.

Manpower Inc.’s nationwide employment outlook report is here.

As predicted, home sales fell in October, according to the Winston-Salem Regional Association of Realtors. The number of units sold fell by more than 10 percent from a year ago and total dollar volume was down 16 percent from October 2006.

Sales dropped in all sizes in single-family homes — two bedrooms or less, three bedrooms and four or more.

Only condo and townhouse sales increased, from 53 in 2006 to 60 in October 2007.

The change from September to October this year was abrupt and severe as concerns about the housing market spread across the nation. Sales had been strong in September when area Realtors sold 70 percent more homes than in September 2006 for a total sales volume of $204 million. But in October the national shockwave hit the Piedmont Triad.

The Winston-Salem-area Realtors reported 539 sales of single-family homes, condos and townhouses in October 2007. The median price (half sold for more, half brought less) was $147,500 and the average price was $182,245. Sales totaled $98.2 million.

There were 604 house, condo and townhouse sales in October 2006 with a median price of $144,325 and an average price of $193,300. Total dollar volume was $116.8 million.

The Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation has added an early morning bus on the route between Mount Airy and Winston-Salem.

The first southbound bus leaves Mount Airy Plaza (behind the Shell station off U.S. 52) at 5:48 a.m.

For more route information, call 336-883-7278 or visit PART’s Surry County Express web site.

The board of directors at Insteel Industries Inc. (Nasdaq: IIIN) in Mount Airy has authorized the company to repurchase up to $25 million of its outstanding common stock over the next 12 months.

The repurchases may be made from time to time in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions subject to market conditions, applicable legal requirements and other factors.

The board’s action does not obligate Insteel to acquire any particular amount of common stock and may be suspended at any time at the company’s discretion.

Insteel has 18.1 million common shares outstanding. Assuming that shares were repurchased at the Dec. 4, 2007 closing price, the repurchase program represents approximately 13 percent of the company’s outstanding stock.

The new authorization by Insteel’s board replaces its previous authorization to repurchase up to $25 million of the company’s common stock, which was to expire on Jan. 5. Through Tuesday, the company had repurchased approximately $2.5 million, or 208,585 shares, of its common stock in this fiscal quarter.

The board of directors also declared a quarterly cash dividend of 3 cents per share on Insteel’s common stock, payable Jan 4, 2008, to shareholders of record as of Dec. 21, 2007.

Insteel Industries is one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of steel wire reinforcing products for concrete construction applications. The company manufactures and markets prestressed concrete strand and welded wire reinforcement, including concrete pipe reinforcement, engineered structural mesh and standard welded wire reinforcement. Insteel’s products are sold primarily to manufacturers of concrete products that are used in nonresidential construction.

Headquartered in Surry County, Insteel operates six manufacturing facilities in the United States.

Tony Chilton, AIA, president of Design Inc., a subsidiary of John S. Clark Company in Mount Airy, has received the LEED Accredited Professional designation.

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high-performance green buildings. LEED gives building owners and operators the tools they need to make an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings’ performance.

LEED for New Construction and Major Renovations was designed to guide and distinguish high-performance commercial and institutional projects. The LEED New Construction exam verifies that an individual possesses the knowledge and skills necessary to participate in the design process to support and encourage the design integration required by LEED and to streamline the application and certification process.

Chilton has more than 20 years’ diversified design/build architectural experience. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree and a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Design in Architecture from North Carolina State University. Personally and through the design staff, he oversees the design concept, schedule, budget, details and value engineering of various John S. Clark Company projects, while also assisting with site and building assessments.

Other John S. Clark Company members with the LEED A.P. designation include Brock Hennings, P.E., a project manager for the Industrial Division, and Greg Savage, a senior project manager for the Triad Commercial Division.

John S. Clark Company recently joined the U.S. Green Building Council in order to promote environmentally conscience construction.

For more information, contact Chelsey Watts, marketing coordinator, chelseyw@jsclark.com.

Surry County’s resident workforce swelled to new high for the year, 35,195, in October, the North Carolina Employment Security Commission announced Wednesday. The number of Surry County residents with jobs also was the largest since June; the total grew from 32,839 in September to 33,087 in October.

Although 250 more people found jobs, there was a net increase of about 100 jobseekers — mainly people thrown into the marketplace after textile and apparel industries closed manufacturing operations in Mount Airy — and Surry County’s unemployment rate rose to 6.0 percent in October, its highest level since February 2006.

When the Employment Security Commission announced its workforce data in September, Surry County was the only North Carolina county whose unemployment rate went up in August. From August to September, however, joblessness rose in 12 counties. In this newest report, 55 N.C. counties have higher unemployment. In the 12-county Piedmont Triad region alone there were eight counties (including Surry) with higher unemployment, three unchanged and one (Yadkin County) with slightly less joblessness.

According to this week’s report, Surry County’s resident workforce in October is slightly (70 people) larger than in the same month a year ago. Slightly less than 33,100 are employed, compared with almost 33,500 in October 2006. More than 2,100 people in Surry County were seeking work last month compared to 1,644 12 months earlier when the jobless rate was 4.7 percent.

UPDATE: The Mount Airy News today (Nov. 29) has an article about the new unemployment numbers, including details of the job losses this year.

A Christmas Open House in Downtown Mount Airy will begin with Santa’s arrival at 10:30 a.m. Dec. 8 on Main Street.

Santa Claus will be downtown until 4:30 p.m., accepting wish lists and posing for candid photographs with youngsters.

The Grace Moravian Brass Band will perform from 1 to 2 p.m. in front of Barney’s Restaurant. The Antebellum Moore House will be open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. for tours and will be serving hot tea. There also will be holiday street carolers in the Historic Downtown District.

Participating stores will offer special sales and refreshments.

The Christmas Open House is sponsored by the Downtown Business Association.

Lowe’s Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW), the world’s second-largest home improvement retailer, this week reported net earnings of $643 million for the quarter ended Nov. 2, 2007, a 10.2 percent decline over the same period a year ago.

Diluted earnings per share fell 6.5 percent to $0.43 from $0.46 in the third quarter of 2006.

For the nine-month period that ended Nov. 2, 2007, net earnings declined 3.7 percent to $2.40 billion while diluted earnings per share dropped 0.6 percent to $1.58.

Lowe’s said the good news is that “our ongoing commitment to maintain a safe shopping and working environment resulted in improved claims experience which led to a $112-million reduction in self-insurance liabilities for workers compensation and general liability claims. The change increased diluted earnings per share by approximately $0.05.”

Sales for the quarter rose 3.2 percent to $11.6 billion, up from $11.2 billion in the third quarter of 2006. For the past nine-month period, sales increased 3.8 percent to $37.9 billion.

Comparable-store sales declined 4.3 percent for both the third quarter and first nine months of 2007.

“Our sales for the quarter fell short of our expectations, but disciplined expense management and ongoing safety initiatives combined with rational and targeted promotions enabled us to deliver earnings per share at the low end of our guidance,” said Robert A. Niblock, Lowe’s chairman and CEO. “Many external factors contributed to the weak sales environment, including a continuing housing correction, drought conditions in several U.S. markets, and slower than expected sales in Gulf Coast markets.

“Clearly the largest of these impacts was the unstable housing environment evidenced by an even steeper decline in housing turnover, falling home prices in many markets, and a near record inventory of homes for sale. Despite these factors, Lowe’s continues to gain market share according to third party estimates.

“The home improvement consumer remains pressured by the ongoing housing correction, tighter credit standards in the mortgage market, and rising financial obligations, but we believe our guidance for the fourth quarter
reflects these factors and is appropriately conservative given the uncertainties that exist.

“Pressures on our industry are likely to continue well into 2008, but we remain committed to our goal of providing great products and unmatched customer service and capitalizing on opportunities to ensure we gain profitable market share regardless of the level of industry growth.”

Lowe’s opened 40 new stores during the quarter. Lowe’s now has 1,464 stores including two in Surry County: Lowe’s of Elkin at 492 CC Camp Road and Lowe’s of Mount Airy at 692 S. Andy Griffith Parkway.