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VF Corp. has closed the $350-million sale of its global intimate apparel business to Fruit of the Loom.

The Greensboro-based apparel maker said today that the sale, first covered in the News & Record in January, of brands including Vanity Fair, Lily of France and Vassarette is complete.

In January, VF said it expected to report a loss of about $45 million, or 40 cents per share, on the sale. That announcement sent the company's stock price down about 4.8 percent.

VF officials have said they hope to focus company attention of more profitable brands and businesses, including major labels Wrangler, The North Face and Nautica. The company plans to use the proceeds from the sale to repurchase shares.

The intimates division produced about $800 million in sales during 2006.

VF Corp. announced today that the Greensboro apparel giant has picked up responsibility for The North Face brand's growth in China - a shift the company claims could represent $40 million in revenue within five years.

Previously, VF licensee Youngone Corp., based in Korea, managed Chinese expansion efforts for the popular outdoor brand.

International Textile Group told government regulators today that the Greensboro-based company could not file its mandatory annual report on time.

According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, ITG has yet to evaluate some accounting issues related to corporate transactions that took place during 2006. Some of these issues have to do with an October merger with Safety Components International.

Since the merger, ITG has operated as a public company, listed on the over-the-counter bulletin board under the ticker symbol ITXN. A majority of shares in the combined companies are held by affiliates of WL Ross & Co., a New York City-based operation that historically invests in financially troubled companies.

ITG plans to file its annual report with government regulators within 15 days.

HIGH POINT - Trone, a High Point advertising, public relations and marketing agency, has created a separate company to handle issue and communications campaigns.

The company, to be based in Greensboro's Southside neighborhood, will be called RLF Communications and Monty Hagler, a current Trone managing partner, will lead it.
RLF's first clients will be CNL Inc., a Florida-based financial services company, Leggett & Platt, a Missouri-based manufacturing company, Gloster Furniture, a United Kingdom-based manufacturer of high-end outdoor furniture, and GSI Commerce, a Pennsylvania-based e-commerce company. Three current Trone employees will join RLF.

"We're looking forward to attracting some of the top talent in our industry to join us as we grow and become part of the revitalization of downtown Greensboro," Hagler said in a news release.

When LSB Bancshares and FNB Financial Services complete their merger into a new, Greensboro-based bank, they'll assume the name NewBridge Bank, the companies reported today.

"This new name reflects the continued and growing connection that we will have with our current and new customers because we will be able to offer more services as a larger bank," Robert F. Lowe, chief executive of LSB Bancshares said in a news release.

The merger, to form a $2-billion regional bank, would create the largest financial institution in the Gate City's history.

Center city booster Downtown Greensboro Inc. plans to host a tour of six residential properties from four different builders from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. April 15.

The city of Greensboro has planned a forum from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. April 12 to get community feedback on design plans for downtown.

Individuals with input on the plans should meet at the Regency Room at the Elm Street Center.

The ice-cream shop at The Palladium at Deep River will hold a ribbon-cutting at 11:45 a.m., and the first 100 customers will receive free prizes including ice-cream cakes and T-shirts.

Also, the new Ben & Jerry's plans to award the first baby born Tuesday in the High Point Regional Health System free ice cream for life.

On Wednesday, all furniture industry employees can take advantage of a buy-one-cone-get-another-free deal by showing their work I.D. Employees who don't have their workplace I.D.'s can get a free cup or cone by bringing in a piece of household furniture.

Retailers have a new plan to fight crime.

A pair of national retail groups has joined up with the FBI to launch a national database that will let retailers privately share information about issues including robberies, counterfeiting and online auction fraud, the National Retail Federation reported today. The database will launch Monday.

Retailers and data experts have been working for more than two years on the program, which is intended to cut down on thefts, particularly those by organized crime rings. In a 2006 NRF survey, 81 percent of retailers claimed they've been victims of organized retail crime. And nearly 50 percent of retailers surveyed said they'd seen an increase in organized crime.

It seems like redevelopment of the Pet Dairy site downtown is never going to happen.

Today, zoning officials granted developer John Kavanagh yet another 30-day window to tinker with his plans for a potential residential, office and/or retail complex in the northeast portion of Greensboro's center, at Lindsay Street and Murrow Boulevard.

This marks the third continuance Kavanagh has secured from the commission on this particular project.

When first proposed, Kavanagh hoped to combine the Pet Dairy property with Galloway/Flow Motors and the nearby Carolina Peacemaker property to create an 8-acre development of homes, commercial space, and possibly a restaurant and small grocery store.

Greensboro doesn't have much claim to fame on this year's Forbes magazine's rankings of the top 200 places for business and careers.

Yeah, the Gate City made the list. But we ranked 61st.

Raleigh, which has been an annual runner-up, finally broke the glass ceiling. The city ranks first on the Forbes list, followed by Durham (in 7th), Charlotte (21st), Asheville (23rd), Winston-Salem (24th), Wilmington (38th). Fayetteville and Hickory also made the grade, ranking 105th and 167th, respectively.

But wait. All is not lost. Greensboro did manage to snag a blue ribbon on one list breakdown.

Forbes says we're tops for the low cost of doing business. Take that Winston (7th), Raleigh (27th) and Charlotte (44th). (Forbes based the cost rankings on factors including taxes, the price of office space, and the costs of labor and energy.)

A Sonic Drive-In franchisee based in South Carolina has bought up 18 of the restaurant chain's locations in the Triad area.

The purchase, which took place April 1, included four Greensboro drive-ins, one in Burlington, two in High Point, one in Kernersville and two in Winston-Salem, in addition to restaurants in Mount Airy, Stanleyville, Clemmons, Elkin, Mocksville, Thomasville and Lexington.

It looks like the nonprofit Junior League of Greensboro might take Starmount up on the local developer's offer of one of the city's most historic houses.

Starmount Co., which recently announced plans to sell its commercial assets and basically start over, isn't getting out of the local development business. The company hopes to build offices of some sort on part of a 6-acre property at the southwest corners of Friendly Avenue and Green Valley Road. In order to do that, Starmount needs to see the Albright house, a rambling white house on the property, moved west along Friendly.

The developer has offered to donate the house and a chunk of property across from Friendly Center to the Junior League, if the nonprofit will relocate the house and refurbish it. The nonprofit's members voted Monday night in favor of accepting the donation.

But there's a problem: Neighbors in Starmount Forest aren't happy, to say the least.

Greensboro's The Sales Factory had added another large university to its client list.

The ad agency will produce marketing materials for alumni of Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. The university has about 92,600 students on eight campuses and more than 240,000 alumni, according to a news release.

The firm's projects will include a brochure for lapsed donors - alumni who have given money to the school in the past but have not done so recently.

In addition to working with companies including VF Corp., The Sales Factory has a list of higher-education clients including N.C. State, Vanderbilt University and the University of South Carolina.

Bluewolf, a New York-based consulting company, has opened an office in Greensboro.

The seven-year-old company, which employs about 175 people and has headquarters in New York City and San Francisco, specializes in software and Web consulting and technology staffing and development.

Notably, Bluewolf co-founder Michael Kirven described the Greensboro area as "the center for technology innovation in North Carolina," in a news release today.

Kirven said the company opened its local office in response to a growing demand for its services in the Raleigh area.

The company's local base of operations is at 2007 Yanceyville Street.

In a recent survey, health care was overwhelmingly named the most critical issue affecting businesses owned by women, but nearly two thirds of women business owners surveyed also believe that global warming and changes to the environment will affect them professionally and/or personally.

The results of a national survey of women business owners were released today by Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), the nation's largest bipartisan women's business group. "What Business Women Want" is an annual online poll conducted by WIPP to gain insight on issues affecting the growth of women-owned businesses.
In a show for current legislation, more than 85% of those surveyed want small employers to have the option to access the same insurance programs offered to government employees and 64% believe that the number of uninsured individuals would decrease if business owners were allowed to shop across state lines for more competitive rates.

The majority supported small business tax breaks as an incentive to offer employee health coverage.

Concern about energy costs ranked as the second most critical issue at 52%. More than half of all businesses (52%) said they have plans to alter business practices to either conserve energy or become more environmentally friendly and 35% reported offering technological initiatives and/or business/service product offerings to increase energy efficiencies.

Two-thirds of the respondents believe that global warming and environmental changes will affect them or their businesses and 45% want to see the government use both incentives and regulations to encourage businesses to encourage conservation.

Tax reform and the federal deficit tied at 51% each for third place. Eighty-one percent believe the current tax structure is in need of comprehensive reform. Women entrepreneurs want several tax cuts made permanent, including the estate tax, capitol gains and dividends, and expensing for small business. Regarding the federal deficit, 67% stated that federal spending should be reduced to decrease the rising deficit.

Big companies that use lots of hydraulic hoses - think FedEx and Honda Aircraft - can't afford to sideline their machinery with broken hoses while somebody goes out to get a hose that fits. So a new company has come to the Triad that offers mobile, on-site hose replacement for companies.

Local businessman Phil Kusiak will open a new Pirtek franchise operation here.

Pirtek says its mobile service vans usually arrive within one hour of a service call, carrying a technically qualified technician and stocked with a full range of hoses and more than 700 different fittings and adaptors, along with a crimping press and cut-off saw, to manufacture hose assemblies on site.

Pirtek centers offer 24-hour, seven-day service to industries including construction, manufacturing, agriculture, food processing, transportation, and engineering, some of which have never been served by an on-site hose provider.

There are currently 36 Pirtek service centers and over 150 Pirtek mobile service vans serving major metropolitan markets throughout the United States. Projections call for 16 new service centers in 2007, increasing to 24 in 2008.

Greensboro-based Steven D. Bell & Co. recently took in $30 million for the sale of two apartment communities, one of them in Greensboro.

The real estate investment and management company sold Northwinds Apartments, a 332-unit complex at Lee's Chapel Road, to a private investor from Gastonia. County property records show that the investor paid $12 million for Northwinds.

That's a substantial increase over the $8.7 million Bell paid for the apartments in August 2006, when the company bought Northwinds as part of a nine-property portfolio from United Dominion Realty Trust. Northwinds is the third of those nine properties that Bell has resold.

Bell also sold Springfield in Durham, a 288-unit apartment complex the company bought in early 2004 for about $11 million, according to Durham County property records. Bell spent about $1.8 million on renovations to the apartments before selling them early this month for more than $18 million. According to a news release, Bell will continue managing the Springfield complex.

Bell manages a real-estate portfolio worth about $2.9 billion, according to company estimates. The company's properties include about 30,000 multifamily residences, 19 senior-living properties and about 4.6 million square feet of retail and office space.

The Automotive Service Association of North Carolina plans to hold an annual trade show at the Sheraton Greensboro Hotel at Four Seasons this month.

The South East Automotive Trade Show will take place April 20 to 22.

The Piedmont Triad Partnership has opened applications for a new position that will help manufacturing companies in the region compete for business against regions around the world.

The position, called business innovation specialist, was created in partnership with the Industrial Extension Service of North Carolina State University and will work under the umbrella of the Workforce Innovations in Regional Economic Development program, called WIRED. WIRED was created by the federal government to help regions rebuild their economies. The Triad got a $15 million grant for the program.

The focus of the business innovation specialist position is to encourage the use of university- and government-developed technologies by local companies to create and use innovative and efficient manufacturing processes and practices.

Application for the Business Innovation Specialist position must be made online at https://jobs.ncsu.edu; reference position number 04-36-0701. Closing date for applications is April 16, 2007.

Below-freezing temperatures in the state last weekend caused more than $1.9 million in crop losses in the Triad, according to preliminary estimates from the state's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Statewide, crop losses from the cold weather nearly reached $112 million, according to flash reports from U.S. Farm Service Agency offices across the state. Nursery crops were hardest hit, experiencing about $58 million in losses, while fruits and vegetables sustained an estimated $26.5 million worth of damage. Other impacted crops included corn, wheat, barley and Irish potatoes.

Of the Triad's 12 counties, only one - Stokes - had not reported any damage as of this afternoon.

Check out the county loss estimates after the jump ...

HIGH POINT -- High Point Market issued 85,708 badges for Spring Market 2007, which wrapped up a few weeks ago, the market said today.

That’s modest growth from the 84,976 badges the furniture market issued in Fall Market in 2006.

Brian D. Casey, president and chief executive officer of the High Point Market Authority, said that 671 buying organizations from around the globe registered to attend the market.

“While we continue to enjoy significant response from Canada, Mexico and South America, it’s interesting to note that more than half of the badges issued to international retailers went to companies in Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East and Asia,” Casey said in a news release. “This was clearly a direct result of our ongoing outreach efforts in these regions and we expect the number of international buyers to increase exponentially as we move forward, particularly in light of our new International Buyer Program (IBP) designation by the U.S. Department of Commerce.”

Casey said the bulk of the badges issued this spring went to buyers (47,109), while exhibitors and sales representatives requested 31,617 badges. Suppliers got 5,433 passes and workers got 790 passes. An additional 759 day passes were issued to students, guests and market volunteers.

A flurry of acquisitions during 2006 helped push Greensboro's Steven D. Bell & Co. onto a recent list of the top 50 apartment managers in the country.

Bell, which increased the number of units it manages by 66 percent last year, ranked 38th on the National Multi Housing Council's list of the top 50 for 2007. Only two other North Carolina companies - Wachovia, in 9th place, and Raleigh-based Drucker & Falk, in 46th - made the list.

This is Bell's first appearance on the top 50 list. The local real-estate investment and management company ran 29,754 apartments at the end of last year - up 11,823 units from the end of 2005. In recent months, though, Bell has sold some apartment properties from a portfolio of acquisitions including Triad-area complexes.

NAI Maxwell, the Triad area's largest privately owned, full-service real estate firm, has changed its name to NAI Piedmont Triad.

The local arm of NAI Global said it hasn't made any other changes. The company still will be led by partners Robbie Perkins and Stanhope Johnson, and its contact information remains the same. The Web site address has changed to www.naipt.com.

GREENSBORO -- Piedmont Triad Entrepreneurial Network's (PTEN) annual Celebration of Entrepreneurs will feature two leading venture authorities who will address how to raise seed and venture capital on May 10 at the Embassy Suites Greensboro Airport.

Leading off the event will be Susan P. Strommer, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Association of Seed and Venture Funds, Inc. (www.nasvf.org)

That group reaches a network of more than 5,000 individuals in innovation capital who invest in or promote investment in seed and startup entrepreneurs. The Chicago-based organization holds an annual conference, provides best practices research and publishes a popular weekly newsletter on innovation capital, NASVF NetNews.

Strommer has Triad connections, having served as an attorney at Womble Carlye Sandrige & Rice. Also, she received an MBA degree from Wake Forest University Babcock Graduate School of Management.

Joining Strommer will be Katrin Burt, a member of the Information Technology Investment Team at Intersouth Partners (www.intersouth.com).

Located in Durham and Reston, Va., Intersouth Partners is one of the largest, most active and most experienced early stage venture funds in the country, having invested in more than 80 private companies over the last two decades. Founded in 1985, Intersouth Partners manages $780 million in seven venture capital limited partnerships. Intersouth seeks a broad range of seed and early-stage investment opportunities throughout the Southeast, focusing on the information technology and life sciences sectors..

In addition, the May 10 event will feature updates from fund executives at Triad-based Piedmont Angel Network and Inception Micro Angel Fund, two seed-stage funds whose expertise and impact is now reaching a broader base across North Carolina and the Southeast.

"This is the one time each year that the Triad entrepreneurial community comes together," said Jon Obermeyer, PTEN CEO. "It's a special occasion for us to interact with leaders who can offer a national perspective on the current and critical issues involved in raising growth capital, as well as network and celebrate the emerging new ventures in our region."

Economic developers from this region know that it takes face time to get the word out about our workers, our transportation system, our climate and our yearning for more jobs.

So a group is in Boston today beginning meetings with site location consultants and real estate advisors to get the word out.

The group will meet with five firms there, said Don Kirkman, president and CEO of the Piedmont Triad Partnership. On the trip are: Heather Sauls, vice president, client development, Piedmont Triad Partnership; Sandy Vernon, senior vice president, High Point Economic Development Corporation; and Steve Googe, president, Davidson County Economic Development Commission.

Greensboro's Carolina Bank Holdings said today it had net income of $701,000 in the first quarter of 2007, an increase of 16.3 percent over the $603,000 reported for the first quarter in 2006.

Total revenue grew 11.1 percent to $3.7 million in the quarter over the $3.3 million reported a year ago.

LSB Bancshares reported today that net income for the first quarter nearly reached $1.8 million - up 1.7 percent compared to the same period last year.

Earnings for Lexington State Bank rose as Lexington-based LSB saw lower expenses, higher non-interest income and a lower provision for loan losses compared to the first quarter of 2006.

Net interest income fell to $10.2 million, down 6 percent, while non-interest income rose 6 percent, to $3.4 million.

Most major areas of the bank's balance sheet remained unchanged, year-over-year. As of March 31, the bank held $985 million in assets, $763 million in loans and $850 million in deposits.

LSB Bancshares is in the process of merging with FNB Financial Services Corp., the parent of Greensboro's FNB Southeast, to create a major regional bank based in the Gate City.

Greensboro-based FNB Financial Services Corp. reported today that net income for the first quarter fell 70 percent compared to the same quarter of last year.

The plummet - from nearly $2.4 million during the first quarter of 2006 to $697,000 in the first quarter of this year - can be chalked up to continued troubles related to risky loans that brought the bank under increased regulatory scrutiny starting in early 2006, the bank's president said in a news release.

The bank's nonperforming loans totaled $14.8 million at the end of March, an increase of about $5.5 million during the past year.

"Although our systems for identifying risk in the loan portfolio have improved, the level of problem credits remains high and we are still distracted from quality loan growth as we deal with the management of nonperforming loans, credit quality downgrades and chargeoffs," said Pressley A. Ridgill, the bank's chief executive officer. "Our goal is to improve in these areas prior to the merger of equals with LSB Bancshares, Inc. ... so the resulting company will not be burdened with significant ongoing credit quality issues."

That merger is slated to close during the third quarter.

Total assets for FNB Southeast, as of March 31, stood at $997 million, down about 2 percent compared to a year before. Outstanding loans were down nearly 9 percent, at just under $688 million, while deposits fell by about 4 percent during the past year, to $801 million.

The Greensboro-based bank plans to sell a pair of its Virginia branches for $5 million.

FNB Southeast said it will sell offices in Norton and Pennington Gap to New Peoples Bank, a subsidiary of Honaker, Va.-based New Peoples Bankshares, Inc.

The sale should close during the second quarter of this year.

Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. is buying select assets of Priority Freight Lines, of Sumner, Wash., Old Dominion said this week.

The Thomasville company will combine Priority's eight terminals and their routes with Old Dominion's network beginning on April 27. That will increase Old Dominion's service centers to 187, the company said.

Old Dominion says it currently offers direct service to 47 states, with 100 percent full-state coverage to 37 states. This acquisition expands that coverage to 38 states, the company said in a news release.

I got an e-mail this morning from Bouvier Kelly, the local agency that apparently is now working the PR circuit for Four Seasons Town Centre.

The mall, and corporate owner General Growth Properties, have long had in-house marketing types in Greensboro. This is the first time I can remember that GGP has brought in an outside group to run press interference for the property. (Neither Four Seasons nor Bouvier Kelley has made any announcement about the new marketing arrangement, and the PR agency hasn't added the mall to its online client list yet.)

It's unclear whether the decision to hire an outside firm has anything to do with image fallout from the events at Four Seasons in recent months (including a shooting in the parking lot just before Black Friday and another inside the mall just before Christmas).

A representative for the PR firm said an announcement about the marketing relationship could come next week.

Unemployment held fairly steady in North Carolina last month but remains higher than the national rate.

The state's unemployment rate for March was 4.5 percent, according to a report today from the Employment Security Commission. The national rate dropped to 4.4 percent last month, down from 4.5 percent during February.

About 201,700 people filed for unemployment benefits in the state last month, according to seasonally adjusted figures. More than 4.3 million people held jobs here in March - down about 2,200 workers from February. Employment in the state has grown by more than 102,000 workers during the past year.

The commission will release unemployment breakdowns by county on April 27.

A local logistics company recently took top honors among Boeing's aerospace suppliers.

New Breed, a third-party logistics company, provides support and delivery services for The Boeing Co., the major Chicago-based manufacturer of commercial jets and military aircraft. Based in High Point, New Breed has more than 50 facilities and 4,000 employees nationwide.

The local company was among 11 suppliers honored this week by Boeing as the "Suppliers of the Year" in their fields. New Breed assists with repair programs for products such as fighter and military aircraft, including the F-15, C-17 and F-22 models.

Other suppliers won for categories such as avionics, technology and diversity. Boeing chose its top suppliers based on customer service, quality, on-time deliveries, post-delivery support and service cost.

New Breed focuses on supply chains in aerospace, defense, wireless communications and an array of other industries. In addition to Boeing, New Breed names the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Postal Service, Verizon Wireless and Siemens Medical Solutions among its clients.

An Idaho firm is set to acquire Greensboro's Alliance Mutual Insurance Co., according to an announcement released late last week.

Alliance, a 31-year-old company that has its headquarters on Revolution Mill Drive, is set to become part of United Heritage Financial Group. As part of the pending deal, Alliance will be converted from a mutual association to a stock company as part of the deal. A mutual association, for those of you who don't wade in jargon, is basically a cooperative owned by its members, who make deposits that represent shares. Mutual associations typically cannot issue stock.

United Heritage is a Meridian, Idaho-based holding company that owns the stock of three insurance companies - United Heritage Life Insurance Co., United Heritage Property & Casualty Co. and Sublimity Insurance Co. None of these companies provide services in North Carolina, though United Heritage has been eyeing this state for expansion of its life-insurance business.

Alliance already provides property and casualty insurance throughout the state using its network of independent agents.

The companies did not disclose financial details of the acquisition, nor did they name a closing date for the deal. Regulators and members of Alliance's board have yet to approve the acquisition.

Got old computers or a useless VCR lying around? Is the pre-HD television sitting in your garage?

Here's the chance to do some spring cleaning. The city and Friendly Center are hosting an electronics recycling event from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Friendly Center Auditorium at 3110 Kathleen Ave.

Consumers can drop of computers, scanners, monitors, printers, VCRs, televisions, digital phones, DVD players, copiers and fax machines.

For more information, call Friendly's management office at 292-2789.

First-quarter profits for VF Corp. exceeded expectations, buoyed by rising revenues from the outdoor, denim and Imagewear divisions and growth of the company's international sales.

The Greensboro-based apparel giant saw revenues increase 15 percent during the first three months of this year, to more than $1.67 billion, compared to $1.45 billion during the first quarter of 2006.

Net income for the first quarter was $138.3 million, or $1.20 per share, up from $128.2 million during the first three months of 2006.

"We're off to a strong start for the year," Mackey J. McDonald, VF's chief executive, said in a news release.

North Carolina ranks 16th in the nation for the size its technology workforce.

And the state ranks at No. 5 for high-tech job growth during 2005, according to a report released today by AeA, the country's largest technology trade association. North Carolina added 7,600 jobs in high-tech industries in 2005, the most recent year studied in "Cyberstates 2007: A Complete State-by-State Overview of the High-Technology Industry."

According to the study, North Carolina employed 142,300 tech workers two years ago and paid out a total of $10 billion to them.

Check out more details after the jump ...

The residents of Starmount Forest and nearby neighborhoods have got their stuff together.

Wednesday night, I went to the second large-scale meeting of neighborhood residents - this one organized by Starmount Co. over at the Friendly Center Auditorium. At issue: The potential rezoning of about 5 acres of property across from Friendly Center at the corner of Green Valley Road and West Friendly Avenue.

GREENSBORO - RF Micro Devices said Tuesday that its net income for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 was $30.1 million, 49 percent less than the previous quarter's $59.3 million net income.
The company did note record revenues, however, of more than $1 billion for the fiscal year.
The decline was consistent with the company's guidance on March 28 that said reductions at one of its major chip customers will affect near-term results.

Sales of existing homes in the Triad fell 8 percent last month compared to March of 2006.

The state's Association of Realtors reported late Tuesday that 1,435 existing homes sold in the Triad during March - down from 1,557 sales one year before. But the area's home sales rose 20 percent from February to March, and total sales dollars for existing homes in the Triad climbed 26 percent from February to March, clocking in at more than $254.3 million.

Activity in the Triad mimicked what we're seeing throughout the state. Existing home sales dipped 7 percent across North Carolina during March, when compared to the same period of 2006. Statewide sales rose by about 27 percent, though, from February to March of this year.

The average cost of an existing Triad home was $177,226 last month, up 3 percent from a year before and slightly lower than the statewide average of $218,449.

Across the state, 11,475 homes sold during March, and total sales dollars surpassed $2.5 billion. Jacksonville, Charlotte and the Triangle areas have seen the state's strongest sales growth in 2007, while previously hot coastal and mountain markets are seeing some declines.

The Triad remains a more stable market than other areas of the state.

Local apartments lost some occupants during the past six months, but they've improved vacancy rates by a percentage point during the last year.

And growth in the area rental market remains high, with more than 5,700 apartments planned or under construction, according to a new report from Charlotte's Real Data Apartment Market Research.

Greensboro's Koury Corp. has planned an open house from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday to introduce the Village Lofts, the residential portion of The Village at North Elm.

The first phase - 30 of the 200 planned apartments - began leasing this week and consists of two buildings of one-, two- and three-bedroom homes above retail space.

The apartments range from 868 square feet to about 1,650 square feet and rent for $900 to $1,800 a month, said Ron Mack, Koury’s executive vice president for retail. Grubb Properties is handling the leasing for Koury, Mack said.

The average apartment in that area of Greensboro is about 870 square feet and costs $583 a month, according to a recent report from Real Data Apartment Market Research.

Jobless rates fell in the Triad's 12 counties last month, mirroring drops in unemployment rates throughout the state.

For March, the Triad's unemployment rate was 4.6 percent, while the state's jobless rate fell to 4.5 percent. In Guilford County, the unemployment rate fell to 4.4 percent in March, down from 5 percent during February. Nearly 237,300 people held jobs in the county last month, while 11,024 were unemployed.

After the jump, check out the 12-county breakdown of jobless rates in March ...

Volvo Trucks, whose North American operations are based in Greensboro, has conducted a study on the ways drowsiness affects drivers and finds that they are remarkably similar to the effects of alcohol.

The company said this week that the study conducted in Sweden used a variety of measures, including two cameras fitted above the instrument panel that monitored the driver's eye movements.

"We wanted our suspicions confirmed in a scientific study using real drivers in an authentic driving environment and using real vehicles - all so as to know with precision how a driver reacts both when drowsy and when under the influence of alcohol," says Peter Kronberg, researcher at Volvo Technology.

GREENSBORO -- N.C. A&T has launched two spinoff businesses from research conducted by its professors, the university said this week.

The first company, Provagen, is a biotechnology company spawned in the School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences.

It plans to produce and market a protein, called Protein V, that can be used in medical research or in manufacturing treatments and diagnostic tests for disease. A&T will retain equity in the company and earn royalties on the product.

The University's Office of Outreach and Technology Transfer has been instrumental in establishing Provagen as a corporation. The next steps will be to hire a CEO, seek small business funding, and continue with market and product development. Other groups assisting in the start-up include the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, N.C. Small Business and Technology Development Center and the HiTEC Program at N.C. State.

"We are very pleased that something that we have been working on for so long might have a useful application in what has become the multi-billion dollar market for antibody binding proteins," said John Allen, a molecular biologist whose discovery of Protein V and subsequent research paved the way for the company.

For the second company, a professor has created a new software company that will help option investors analyze profits and losses before trading.

Premiere Analytics develops intuitive, interactive financial analysis software.

The new venture is founded by Dr. Christopher Doss, assistant professor in the electrical engineering department at N.C. A&T, and his wife, Mattie Doss.

GREENSBORO -- The Greensboro Chamber of Commerce will hold its Business Awards Luncheon on May 10 at the Greensboro Coliseum Special Events Center.

The luncheon costs $30 per person or $300 for a table of eight with sponsorship recognition. By purchasing a ticket to the luncheon, participants will receive free admission to the Piedmont Triad Business Showcase, which features more than 160 exhibitors covering a wide variety of products and services.

To register online for the luncheon visit the Calendar of Events section of the chamber's Web site www.greensborochamber.com. For more information, or to obtain a ticket for the luncheon, contact Kathy Elliott at 387-8322 or kelliott@greensboro.org.

Listingbook, a Greensboro-based online service that links real-estate professionals and clients, has made deals with two Florida companies that collectively represent 10,500 agents.

Pinellas Realtor Organization of Clearwater and the West Pasco Board of Realtors of New Port Richey, both multiple-listing service companies, plan to use Listingbook to share and receive real-estate data. The Pinellas group, with more than 8,000 members, is one of the largest trade associations in the Tampa Bay area of Florida.