Hubcap Heaven expands space
Hubcap Heaven is expanding its Murfreesboro Road location with new construction and is considering building a warehouse on the site, according to Shelli Hoover, HH sales manager.
The updates follow Hubcap Heaven’s early May acquisition of the inventory of the now-closed Hubcap Annie for an undisclosed price. Relatedly, Hubcap Heaven hired two former Hubcap Annie employees, Hoover said.
Hubcap Annie operated at 811 Wedgewood Ave. in the Waverly Belmont district.
In business for almost 30 years, Hubcap Heaven sells wheels, wheel covers and center caps, while also offering refinishing and straightening.
Construction start looms for Luxus Germantown
Franklin-based developer Jim Creason is close to breaking ground on his high-end residential project Luxus Germantown, as a construction trailer and site fencing are in place on the site. In addition, Creason told the Post Monday he will move reservations to contracts by month's end and is considering multiple financing offers.
Luxus Germantown, “luxus” is German for “luxury”, will be an eight-unit "European-infused" row home development will anchor the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue North (one block north of Germantown Café) and Monroe Street.
Creason, who undertakes his infill projects as president of Trust Development, is known for incorporating major traditional exterior designs with his residential buildings. Examples include Fifth & Garfield, which is nearing completion, and The Clayton, on Sixth Avenue North. Both those projects are located in Salemtown.
Read more here.
Community First VP jumps to Franklin Synergy
Veteran local banker Tommy Adair has joined Franklin Synergy Bank as vice president and credit department manager. Adair comes to Franklin Synergy from struggling Community First, which has been shrinking its asset base to comply with regulators' capital level mandates. He started his finance career at the former Williamson County Bank.
VU's Zeppos pushes for science research support
Vanderbilt Univerity Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos continues to urge support for sustained federal investments in science and engineering research. Last week, the VU leader met with Tennessee’s congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., to discuss the subject. Read more here.
TSU researchers help ID early childhood obesity risk
A recent study conducted by researchers at Tennessee State University and Case Western Reserve shows that childhood obesity risk can be predicted as early as two months old.
TSU officials announced today findings of the study. Read more here.
Researchers at both universities analyzed “well-child records,” finding that normal-weight babies with a body-mass index in the 17 percentile were found to have plateaued at about two months and rarely deviated over the next five years. In constrast, overweight or obese babies crossed the 17 percentile many months later (about age 14 months) and continued an upward climb when BMI growth patterns were monitored.
Results show that obesity rates historically difficult to define in young children and the TSU/Case Western effort might change the process by which obesity is traditionally diagnosed.
“We found that, by age five, normal-weight children developed differently from birth than those considered overweight, obese or severely obese,” Dr. Lisaann Gittner (pictured), TSU assistant professor of public service and coauthor of the study, said in the release.
BMLG adds two to sales, marketing, interactive team
Big Machine Label Group has added Michael Sloane as director of interactive and Braden Carney as marketing coordinator. The two will work within BMLG's sales, marketing and interactive team. Jessica Nicholson and MusicRow.com have more here.
Symphony lays off dining, catering staff
The financially troubled Nashville Symphony Association laid off its entire catering and dining staff on Monday in a cost-cutting move that followed a decision that food service was “not directly related to our core mission.” The City Paper has the story here.
S&P 500 dropping First Horizon
Shares of First Horizon National, the parent of First Tennessee Bank, will soon leave the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index. The parent of the largest bank headquartered in Tennessee will make way for what until recently was called Pfizer Animal Health. Shares of First Horizon (Ticker: FHN) were off only slightly Monday — they might slide some more in the coming days as index fund managers shift their holdings — but are still up 10 percent on the year.
Big sales from Genesco insiders
Investors who track insiders' activities won't find much to like at Genesco lately. In the past week, five of the shoe and hat retailer's top executives have unloaded more than $4.8 million worth of their shares as that paper (Ticker: GCO) has climbed to its highest levels of 2013. Here's a rundown:
• Jim Estepa, boss of Genesco's retail group, sold more than $1.5 million worth of shares, trimming his holdings by a fifth.
• CFO Jim Gulmi unloaded just over $1 million of stock, roughly 8 percent of his stake in the company.
• General Counsel Roger Sisson exercised 20,000 options and sold the resulting shares for a profit of $1 million.
• Ken Kocher, president of Hat World, added more than $760,000 to his bank account by selling a seventh of his stock holdings.
• Chairman, President and CEO Bob Dennis unloaded almost $570,000 worth of his stock. Of the sales, only his was consummated under the umbrella of a trading plan.
The execs' sales came two weeks after Genesco reported better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter numbers. It's worth noting that the consensus EPS estimate among analysts tracking the company has risen only 5 cents since, whereas the company's Q1 was 9 cents better than expected.
Meharry project moves forward
The local office of Skanska USA Building Inc. has a secured a permit to demolish a small residential building on the Meharry Medical College campus. The razing, the cost for which has been priced at $20,000, will be the next step in Meharry’s efforts to redevelop the south portion of the campus with residential infill. Read more here.
