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Reidsville Community Bank has received regulatory approval to start raising capital, according to an announcement from the proposed financial institution.

The bank hopes to raise about $7.5 million in working capital and plans to seek out between 150 and 250 local investors to buy into at least $1,000 in stock during a limited offering. About half the bank's shares will be held by Capitol Bancorp Limited, the Lansing, Mich.-based bank holding company launching the Rockingham County bank.

Capitol Bancorp, a publicly traded company that describes itself as a "bank development company," has 55 small banks in 15 states, as of last month. That includes Community Bank of Rowan in Salisbury and China Grove, and First Carolina State Bank in Rocky Mount.

The community bank will be run by industry veteran Bill Griffith, former president of Mutual Savings & Loan and former chief executive officer of Alamance Bank, which became CommunityOne Bank after a series of acquisitions and mergers that kicked off two years ago.

Griffith's management team and list of directors includes:

* Warren "Tim" Webb (proposed chief credit officer)
* Oliver Parker
* Bruce Citty
* James Festerman
* Drexall Dixon
* Teresa Knowles
* Mary J. Simpson

The bank plans to open a temporary location at 112 S. Main St. in Reidsville while officials wait for construction of their new facility, at 610 S. Scales St. in Reidsville.

Time Warner Cable and the statewide public television service have reached an agreement to run locally produced programs on a Video on Demand channel throughout North and South Carolina.

"Folkways" and "North Carolina People" will be shown on channel 1234, the free Carolina on Demand Station available to the region's digital subscribers to Time Warner.

Both programs are long-running shows from UNC-TV.

This came in too late for last Sunday's retail column, but I wanted to make sure to get it up somewhere.

Macy's, which has locations at Friendly Center and off Wendover Avenue in Greensboro and at Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem, will host it second annual "Shop for a Cause" charity event on Saturday.

Macy's donates tickets to regional and local charities, which sell the tickets for $5 each and keep the proceeds. Shoppers can redeem their tickets at any Macy's store Saturday to get deals on clothing, accessories and home goods.

The inaugural event raised nearly $10 million last year, according to a news release from Macy's.

Local specialty fabrics maker Glen Raven says it has developed a better flame-resistant fabric for the industrial apparel market with help from a European partner.

The Glen Raven-based company has been working for two years on product development with Kermel, a performance fiber manufacturer.

The result is GlenGuard FR, a fabric the companies tout as more comfortable, durable and color-fast that other protective clothing used by electric, oil and gas companies, for industrial maintenance, by engineering firms, in automotive racing and other sectors where people are exposed to heat, flames, chemicals and other hazards.

So the Triad's existing-home sales slumped in the third quarter.

Actually, they fell more than 8 percent from the third quarter of last year, according to a report out today from the Greensboro Regional Realtors Association and Triad MLS.

Seasonally adjusted figures show that 2,636 existing single-family homes sold in the eight-county Triad during the third quarter. Nearly half were in Guilford County, with 877 of those in the Greensboro area.

Though average Greensboro home prices rose slightly in the past year, they didn't keep pace with inflation - indicating that real prices are down slightly, says local economist Don Jud.

The Realtors group reported Thursday that existing home sales in Greensboro were down for September, when compared to a year before, but that the average home here is selling for more than it did a year ago.

Oddly, the group's September report claimed that home sales were down more than 26 percent compared to a year before; however, the Realtors said that the average sales price for an existing single-family home sold here climbed 7 percent in the same period.

At this point, no one I've talked to has been able to explain that particular data. I imagine the average existing home sale price might have climbed a little bit, since the credit crunch and the subprime collapse have made it challenging for would-be buyers of cheaper homes. And a lot of homes in the $100,000s seem to be sitting on the market. But I don't think that trend, alone, could explain away such a dramatic jump.

Anyone have thoughts on that?

WINSTON-SALEM - BB&T Corp. has reported that its total third-quarter net income was up by 6.5 percent compared with the third quarter of 2006.

Net income was $444 million, or 80 cents per diluted share, compared with $417 million, or 77 cents per diluted share, earned during the third quarter of 2006.

Operating earnings for the third quarter of 2007 totaled $448 million, or 81 cebts per diluted share, compared to $424 million, or 78 cents per diluted share, earned during the third quarter of 2006.

Operating earnings exclude $4 million and $7 million in net after-tax merger-related and restructuring charges from the third quarters of 2007 and 2006, respectively.

Unifi will take a pre-tax charge as it sells its interest in a joint venture.

The Greensboro-based yarn maker plans to charge off between $4.25 million and $4.75 million to account for changes in the value of Unifi-Sans Technical Fibers, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Unifi's 50 percent stake in the joint venture is valued at $13.4 million on the company's balance sheet; however, that figure exceeds the market value of the investment, the company reported this week.

Unifi, which announced the joint venture with Sans Fibres of South Africa in 2000, disclosed plans to sell its stake in a quarterly filing earlier this year. The venture agreement allowed Unifi to sell its stake in the nylon yarn-producing business for fair market value and to unload its interest in an affiliated plant in Stoneville.

A board member has resigned from Thomasville-based Old Dominion Freight Line, leaving the company's board and audit committee with too few independent members and out of compliance with Nasdaq rules.

Independent director W. Chester Evans III tendered his resignation to the company's board on Monday, starting that he was no longer "able to continue to devote the time and attention necessary to properly represent the shareholders," according to a news release from Old Dominion. Evans served as chairman of the company's compensation committee and a member of both the audit committee and governance and nomination committees.

After Evans's resignation, Old Dominion is no longer in compliance with Nasdaq's requirements for the composition of its boards. The company has time to regain compliance and plans to immediately launch a search process to replace Evans.

Here's some news you likely expected: Existing home sales fell in the Triad - and throughout the state - last month, according to a report out today from the state's Realtors group.

Sales of existing homes statewide fell 22 percent in September, when compared to the same month last year. Statewide, 9,267 existing homes sold during the month, at an average price of $228,072.

People I talked to with the N.C. Association of Realtors wouldn't speculate on reasons for the 8 percent jump in the average sales price between September of last year and September of this year.

It's likely part of that, though, can be chalked up to buyers of less expensive homes shying away from purchases as they find it harder to get loans. But I've also talked to a number of people who study the local real estate market and question the methodology used to arrive at some of these year-over-year figures.

Regardless, the Realtors group saw some gloom here in the Triad, where existing home sales fell 28 percent from September 2006 to September '07, according to the report. About 1,140 such homes sold in the region last month, compared to about 1,580 during the same month last year. Total sales dollars for September were $204,614,985 - down 27 percent from a year prior.

The average sale price for an existing home here was up just 2 percent last month, according to today's report.

Area apartments are at their lowest vacancy rates since 2000, with Triad communities at an average of 92 percent leased.

That's according to a report just out from Charlotte-based Real Data Apartment Market Research. And those findings aren't really much of a surprise, considering that the region's apartment market has showed almost steady improvement in the past five years and that some would-be homebuyers likely are opting to rent now that credit isn't so easy to come by.

Demand for area apartments remains strong, with the newest communities reporting the best occupancy rates. Average rents here have risen 4 percent in the past year, to $641 a month.

The lowest vacancy rates for September were in southwest Winston-Salem and southwest Greensboro, the latter of which happens to have the most expensive square-footage in the area.

Southeast Greensboro saw the highest vacancy rate - 12.4 percent.

Update: Talked to a Kellogg spokeswoman, who said the company will effectively be doubling the size of its local snack distribution facility with the new lease, which has a five-year life.

"The impetus for this is growth in our snack business," Wilkins said, referring to brands such as Keebler.

If you didn't see it in today's News & Record, cereal maker Kellogg Co. has signed a lease on 117,500 square feet of industrial space in Greensboro.

The Battle Creek, Mich.-based food company's lease is at Enterprise II, part of an airport-area park owned by Highwoods Properties. Officials with Raleigh-based Highwoods confirmed the Kellogg lease Thursday but said they did not know what the space will be used for and how many people Kellogg might employ there.

Kellogg officials still haven't returned my calls from yesterday.

With the cereal maker lined up, Enterprise II, a 418,000-square-foot distribution facility, is 72 percent pre-leased.

Other park tenants include Greensboro-based RF Micro Devices, which plans to open its new microchip wafer plant in another shell building on Brigham Road within a year.

Jobless rates fell last month in eight of 12 Triad counties, including Guilford, Alamance and Forsyth.

Statewide, nearly 75 percent of counties saw unemployment rates drop in September, as the state's overall jobless rate fell to 4.5 percent, from 4.7 percent in August.

Guilford's rate also dropped to 4.5 percent last month, with 236,604 people working and 11,225 people filing for unemployment benefits. The county had a jobless rate of 4.8 percent in August.

A Glen Raven fabric used to protect industrial workers is now going to be used in auto racing.

GlenGuard FR, which provides protection from heat and burns, will debut at the Performance Racing Industry Show in Orlando in early December.

The performance fabrics company is based in Glen Raven and known for specialty fabrics such as brands including Sunbrella and Dickson.

Time Warner Cable is adding phone service to its package available to small and medium-sized businesses in the Triad.

Just as the company is pushing residential customers toward buying digital phone, cable television and high-speed Internet service together, now the cable provider is touting bundled packages for business. It's an effort to broaden Time Warner's offerings far beyond traditional cable television - and further muscle in on the phone company's territory.

And it's a continuation of an industry push to get consumers to buy all their telecommunications services through a single company.

Time Warner is launching "Business Class Phone" in the Carolinas this week. The service includes unlimited local and long-distance calling in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, as well as three-way call transfer and other features.

According to a Time Warner news release, the company has "more than 2 million" residential subscribers in the U.S. who use digital phone.

Greensboro-based Legacy Paddlesports has received three patents and is applying for two more.

The company, which makes and sells kayaks, has picked up U.S. patents related to its new Native Watercraft Ultimate kayak design, its Adapt-a-Track accessories (which include cup holders and paddle holders) used in the Ultimate Series kayaks, and its Plug-and-Play accessory mounting system (which includes a paddle holder, a thigh pad and a dashboard) used in its Native Watercraft Magic kayaks.

Legacy Paddlesports also has applied for two patents: One for a pedal and propeller drive unit that drops into one of the company's kayak models; the other for a lightweight, cushioned seat available on some kayak models or as a separate purchase.