Charlotte gets pricey

At Charlotte's Douglas International Airport, the average airfare grew 12 percent for the first quarter of 2008, coming to $392.05 as opposed to the same time last year, $349.48.

McClatchy ready to rebound?

Compared to the same period a year ago, newspaper publisher McClatchy's earnings fell 44 percent in the second quarter of 2008. The company earned $35.2 million in the second quarter last year and $19.7 this year. The Sacramento-based company's papers in the Carolinas include The State of Columbia, The Charlotte Observer, The Herald of Rock Hill, and the News & Observer of Raleigh.

Unemployment

Statewide in North Carolina, unemployment hit 6.2 percent in June, up from 5.8 percent in May. In June, South Carolina's unemployment rate was also 6.2 percent. The national unemployment rate for June was 5.5 percent.

UNC Charlotte football: Rivalry with USC?

UNC Charlotte is seriously looking into the pros and cons of starting a football team by 2012, aiming for the college ranks' highest level in 2016, where USC and Clemson are waiting. Plans suggest start- up costs of running a lower- tier team could come to $8 million a year, and the top- tier team, $12 million. Students would cover the costs, each paying an additional student fee of $300 by 2012. UNC Charlotte's student body is expected to top 23,000 this fall and 35,000 by 2020.

Change on Aug. 1

The Savannah River Site management changed hands on Friday, August 1. Savannah River Nuclear Solutions LLC (SRNS) now manages the Department of Energy Facility. The outgoing contractor was Washington Savannah River Company, who managed and operated SRS for 19 years.

Downtown arts districts

The Charleston Department of Planning, Preservation & Economic Innovation and the Ginn Co. held a community design workshop in the last week of July to discuss the creation of an arts district on 180 acres in Charleston's upper peninsula, a former landfill next to the Ravenel Bridge. Called The Promenade, the district plans include an outdoor amphitheater that would seat 10,000, an indoor concert hall with 3,000 seats, arts office space, rehearsal space, arts production incubating space, gallery space, retail, 1,000 high- end housing units, and a Ritz- Carlton Hotel. On Columbia's Main Street where the Nickelodeon is taking over the old Fox Theater in the 1600 block, an opera house with 1,500 seats at the corner of Main and Gervais is always bandied about, as is a smaller theater on the First Citizens property at Lady and Main. The corner at Gervais and Main is where Columbia's opera house stood for decades before being torn down to make way for the Wade Hampton Hotel, now also torn down.

Speaking of theaters and opera houses...

The League of Historic American Theaters recognized the Newberry Opera House in Newberry, S.C., as Outstanding Theater of 2008 at the national conference in Atlanta, Ga., July 20, 2008. The Newberry Opera House, where its 200 annual events draw 100,000 people to Newberry, is credited with more than $250 million of economic growth.

Record support

The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) achieved a record $67 million in gifts last year including pledge payments and new pledges received. MUSC and its affiliates have collective annual budgets in excess of $1.6 billion.

More record support

The University of South Carolina, for the year ending June 30, broke all fundraising records, bringing in $106.2 million in private gifts and pledges. The total is 58.7 percent above last year's $66.9 million.

Nexsen Pruet wins big

The antitrust practice group of Columbia- based Nexsen Pruet law firm recently secured $107 million in the settlement of a textile price- fixing lawsuit. Nexsen Pruet represented 17 textile and carpet companies in the suit against Hoechst Celanese Corp., a supplier of polyester staple fiber and affiliated entities. The price fixing conspiracy surfaced after investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Columbia needs to be next

In mid- July, Greenville was included by Google in a free program that allows any computer user to take a three- dimensional tour of the business district by way of Google Earth 4.3 and its 3D Buildings section. Greenville's 3D model is expected to help support economic development and tourism.