Briefs

Besides all that Charlotte- based Bank of America, having bought Countrywide, the huge mortgage firm, and now pulling in Merrill Lynch, is about to place its logo on Yankee Stadium and all of the New York Yankees tickets. Citibank pays the New York Mets about $20 million a year (for over 20 years) and Barclays pays the New Jersey Nets about as much for their new home, so the Yankees deal with Bank of America is expected to run about $20 million a year for the next 20 years.

Is Columbia in on the construction management? Charlotte's NASCAR Hall of Fame project has hiked in construction costs from $163 million to $195 million, an increase of $32 million, or 20 percent. Public funding is carrying most of the costs with a new 2 percent hotel tax and dedicated hospitality taxes.

New movie production needs extras Dear John, a new movie based on the 2006 Nicholas Sparks novel, will be filmed in the Charleston area. Production is expected to begin in mid- October. An extras casting call will be held Saturday, Sept. 20, from 10 am to 2 pm in the Student Center (rooms 212, 214, 216) at Trident Technical College in North Charleston. The extras casting director is Tona Dahlquist, who also handled the extras in Columbia for the movie Nailed. Applicants must bring a current snapshot of themselves.

New homes building permits down According to the Home Builders Association of Greater Columbia, building permits were down 43 percent this August compared to the same time period last year in Lexington, Richland, and Kershaw counties and the cities of Columbia and Lexington. On a more positive note, house prices in the Columbia market are still at their historical average of about 2.7 times local area incomes. Nationally, at the recent height of the housing boom, house prices rose to 4.7 times income, but now they are down to 3.7.

Big money for a bigger school Duke University's Fuqua School of Business plans to spend more than $500 million over the next decade to locate branch campuses in New Delhi, India; St. Petersburg, Russia; Dubai, UAE; Shanghai, China; and London, UK. At all locations classes are expected to begin in August. Every campus will offer all of Duke's MBA programs.

Tourism The S.C. Dept. of Parks, Recreation, & Tourism (SCPRT) will hold a public meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 23 at 6 pm in the Carolina Room of the convention center on Lincoln Street. Consultants from Ireland- based Tourism Development International will be there to discuss development projects that support tourism, S.C.'s largest industry.

Spartanburg County's BMW plant doubles impact In 2002, an economic impact study by USC's Moore School of Business was done on the BMW plant. At the time, the plant was credited with $4.1 billion annually in economic impact. A recent report, also by the Moore School, has upped the impact to $8.8 billion. Annual wages and salaries come to $1.2 billion. Last spring, BMW announced a $750 million expansion to the plant which would bring another 500 new jobs, increasing present productivity from 160,000 vehicles annually to 240,000.

Getting hotter Charlotte-based bizjournals.com recently released a survey of America's 100 hottest job markets. Houston is No. 1 and Detroit is No. 100. Representing the Carolinas among the top 50: Raleigh is No. 4, Charlotte is No. 7, Durham is No. 9, Charleston is No. 11, Greenville is No. 12, Columbia is No. 34, Winston- Salem is No. 42, and Greensboro is No. 47.

Local airports Charlotte/Douglas International Airport ranked tenth among the country's airports for domestic boardings for the first six months of 2008. Almost 8 million passengers boarded flights for the first half of the year, which can imply an annualized enplanement total of no more than 16 million, a gain of about 5 percent. At Columbia Metropolitan Airport for all of fiscal year 2007, 613,233 passengers were enplaned.

Foreclosures In August, N.C. had one foreclosure filing for every 876 households. In S.C., there was one foreclosure for every 1,427 homes.