Weekly economic review includes downtown development, job cuts

The City Wire economic review for the week of Jan. 12 – Jan. 16:

REGIONAL/STATE
• A Fort Smith-based company that develops and manages apartment complexes around the state will invest “at least $1 million” in renovating the former Davis Furniture building in downtown Fort Smith. Joseph Meadows and his father, Jim, purchased the three-story, 24,000-square-foot building Aug. 31, and have plans to develop loft apartments on the top two floors and placing a restaurant-bar on the first floor.

• Fortis Plastics has laid off about 70 employees at its Fort Smith plant within the past six months, according to a source with direct knowledge of the plant’s activities. The plant, previously operating as Atlantis Plastics, is located at 428 S. U St., and employed about 300 full- and part-time workers prior to Thanksgiving. About 40 temp workers were cut in November and 30 full-time workers were given layoff notices after the holiday break. About 230 are now employed at Fortis’ Fort Smith plant.

• The number of Arkansas properties facing foreclosure activity in 2008 was more than the number of properties in 2007 and 2006 combined. The number of properties facing foreclosure action in the Fort Smith metro area (Crawford, Franklin, Logan and Sebastian counties in Arkansas; Le Flore and Sequoyah counties in Oklahoma) totaled 1,084 in 2008, up 84% over the 588 regional properties in 2007.

• Little Rock-based Bank of the Ozarks announced Jan. 15 that it posted 2008 fiscal year net income of $34.47 million, up 8.6% over 2007 net income of $31.74 million. Also, the company closed out the year with fourth-quarter net income of $9.09 million, up 17.5% over the same quarter of 2007. However, the bank took a big hit on bad loans and leases for the year. The company reported a loan loss provision of $19.02 million in 2008, up more than 209% over the provision of $6.15 million in 2007. The significant 2008 loan loss provision took the shine off the 27.2% gain in net interest income ($98.7 million) in 2008.

NATIONAL
• Toyota Motor Corp. said it will cut 29 production days in the first quarter of 2009 at a Kentucky plant that builds the Camry sedan and at its San Antonio pickup-truck plant. Toyota is cutting 5,000 temp workers from its plants in Japan. Also, General Motors Corp. announced this week that its 2009 sales of new vehicles could fall to a 27-year low. The company predicted it would sell only 10.5 million units.

• Sales at U.S. retailers fell more than twice as much as forecast in December. The retailers and market watchers cited job losses and the lack of credit as to why consumers curtailed spending. Federal Commerce Department officials said the 2.7 percent decline marked the sixth straight month of declines. It’s the longest pattern of decline since comparable records began in 1992.