Tiger Woods golf course on hold
Amy’s Kitchen, a California-based company that produces natural and organic foods, plans to open a facility that will employ 700 people in Greenville County. The company is renovating a 120,000-square-foot facility formerly used by Sara Lee.
Amy’s Kitchen CEO Andy Berliner said the company will invest about $63 million into the building and reach the employment target of 700 over the next six years. Rudolph said the company chose Greenville County to be close to both the organic ingredients it needs for its products and a growing customer base along the East Coast.  He added that Greenville County provided “an excellent site and an existing structure suiting our needs,” and the state offered “a positive business environment.”
Amy’s Kitchen, a family run company owned and operated by Andy and Rachel Berliner, said it will produce a line of frozen entrees at the new Greenville facility. Amy’s products currently are available in natural food stores, most supermarkets and warehouse club stores across the country. The company, which had approximately $300 million in sales last year, plans to begin hiring in Greenville this summer and launch operations at its new site in January 2012.
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Plans for a Tiger Woods designed golf course in Western North Carolina have been put on hold. Work on The Cliffs at High Carolina, expected to be Woods’ first course in North America, has been temporarily stopped due to a lack of sales, according to Cliffs Communities developer Jim Anthony. He said only about 40 of the 1,000 lots at The Cliffs at High Carolina have been sold since the project was launched nearly four years ago.  Lot prices at the 3,000-acre mountainside development near Swannanoa originally started at around $500,000.
Anthony reported to the Asheville Citizen-Times in January that he had invested $150 million into the development and both he and Woods were fully committed to completing the project.  He said at the time he expected construction to resume in April, but last week he said construction was postponed again and he now expects the course may not be completed until 2013 at the earliest. No work has been done at The Cliffs at High Carolina since November 2010. Woods’ plans for a golf course in Dubai also have been shelved.
The Cliffs Communities, which includes six golf course developments in the Carolinas, borrowed $62 million last year from property owners in the developments. The money was needed, the company said, to complete projects in the developments. The Greenville News reported last month that Anthony was negotiating with a lender to avoid foreclosure on some Cliffs properties.
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Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) has started sending out layoff notices to 739 teachers, librarians, counselors and other workers in the school system because of  budget cuts. The school system also is notifying 338 other workers that they will be reassigned. Administrators, along with some other support personnel, will be notified separately of layoffs.  The staffing changes for the 2011-2012 school year are part of $100 million in budget cuts. The school board voted last November to close 11 schools in the district and consolidate some others. After hearing from many concerned parents, the school board voted this week to ask Mecklenburg County for an additional $50 million to avoid some of the cuts. The county has not yet made a decision on the funding. CMS, which is also waiting to hear about school funding from the state level, has faced significant layoffs in each of the past three years.
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North Carolina legislators are considering a bill to place additional restrictions on abortions. A bill that passed a House judiciary committee this week, would require women to receive state-specified information about the physician at least 24 hours before the abortion and review information from an ultrasound of the fetus. Women would be required to learn the stage of development of the unborn child, medical risks associated with an abortion and birth and alternatives to an abortion. Supporters of the bill, which the judiciary committee passed by a 9-5 vote along party lines, said it will ensure that women have the medical information to make an informed decision. Opponents of the bill said it creates psychological obstacles to limit a woman’s choice.  Currently, North Carolina is one of 16 states in the country that don’t require specific counseling before an abortion.
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The N.C. Senate voted 50-0 to restrict corporal punishment in the state’s public schools. The bill, which now goes to the N.C. House, would let parents tell school administrators that they do not want corporal punishment used if their children misbehave. Parents could make their wishes known in writing at the start of the school year. North Carolina is one of 19 states that allow corporal punishment, although fewer than 20 of the state’s 115 school districts still use it as a form of punishment. The school districts still practicing corporal punishment are in rural districts in the southeast and west areas of the state. The state required school districts last year to report corporal punishment data for the first time. The figures showed there were 1,160 cases of such punishment across the state. Robeson County schools had the highest number with 296 cases. Current law allows a teacher or principal, under the observation of a witness but no other students, to paddle a student as punishment.  The N.C. legislature passed a law last year to let parents of disabled students opt-out of such punishment. The bill under consideration this year would extend that option to parents of all students.
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Duke Energy faced protests from two fronts at its annual shareholder meeting in Charlotte. Environmental groups complained that the company continues to build coal-fired power plants and is moving ahead with plans for new nuclear plants, including one near Gaffney, S.C. Environmental activists said the utility company is not utilizing the best available technology to limit emissions from some coal-powered plants and is not doing enough to expand use of alternative energy sources. Duke Energy also heard at the shareholder meeting from tea party activists who complained that Duke CEO Jim Rogers gave $10 million to help bring the Democratic National Convention to Charlotte. Tom Williams, a spokesman for Duke Energy, said the company has continually supported economic development efforts in the region, which included the convention. Duke is guaranteeing a $10 million line of credit for the Democratic Party’s presidential nominating meeting. Duke is also moving ahead with plans to buy Progress Energy of Raleigh in a $13.7 billion deal that, if approved by regulators, would create the country’s largest utility.
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The N.C. Department of Transportation plans to convert high-occupancy vehicle lanes on I-77 to toll lanes, according to the Lake Norman Transportation Commission. The toll lanes, which would remain free to vehicles carrying at least two people, public buses and van pools, also would be extended from Charlotte to Exit 28 in Cornelius. Tolls would be higher at congested times of the day. DOT is expected to approve the $64.6M project this summer and begin work in late 2014 or early 2015. Construction would continue for about three years on the project. An I-77 task force endorsed the high occupancy toll lanes last year. The panel said the lanes would reduce congestion and make it possible to widen I-77 sooner than previously planned. The tolls, which would be higher during congested periods of the day, also would be used to fund law enforcement, which will monitor whether the lanes are properly used.
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Michelin plans to invest $200 million and create 270 new jobs when it expands its facility in Lexington, S.C. Work on the expansion is expected to begin immediately and be completed within two years. Michelin currently employs 1,360 people at its Lexington facility, which makes passenger and light truck tires at the 1.2 million-square-foot plant. The company also has an earthmover tire plant, which employs 475 people in 825,000 square feet, at the same site. Michelin North America, which is headquartered in Greenville, S.C., employs more than 21,400 people at 18 manufacturing plants.
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Michelin North America is planning to collaborate with the College of Charleston’s School of Business to create a professional development program for global logistics and transportation. The program, which will be available online, will be open to any business, education or government entity and include four subject areas: import/export documentation; the Port of Charleston and U.S. customs; regulations and pricing; and operations. Michelin plans to use the virtual training program over the next two years, during which time the curriculum could be expanded. Participants in the program also will have access to an internship program and post-graduation job placements at Michelin.
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Star gazers will have a chance to witness an unusual alignment of planets in the skies around Asheville this month. Paul Heckert, professor of astronomy and physics at Western Carolina University, said Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter will be visible close together in the southeastern sky during early morning hours before the sun rises. Venus will appear as the brightest of the four planets, while Jupiter is the second brightest, Mercury is a faint white and Mars is a reddish color. Saturn will be visible at night and is not close to the other four planets.