Sacramento Blogs

The Regus Group PLC has opened one of its fully equipped offices in Elk Grove. Regus leases equipped and furnished offices in high-end buildings.

The new business center features 91 offices, 142 workstations, a board room, meeting room and a video/teleconferencing center. The Elk Grove center is the company’s eighth location in the Sacramento region.

The Elk Grove business center, at 9245 Laguna Springs Drive, is on the second floor of a new office building in a business park that includes two other office buildings along with a hotel and restaurant.

The company also has three centers in Sacramento, two in Roseville, and one each in Folsom and Gold River.

Guaranty Bank has opened a branch in Roseville. John Lombardo is the new bank manager.

The 6,500-square-foot office is located at 8777 Sierra College Blvd.

Guaranty Bank , based in Austin, Texas, has more than 150 branches in California and Texas.

The McClatchy Company reported a non cash charge in the fourth quarter of $1,470,000 that raised the company’s 2007 losses to more than two and a half billion dollars. The Sacramento based newspaper publisher had already taken a non-cash charge of $1.4 billion in the third quarter.

The fourth-quarter net loss was $1.43 billion, or the equivalent of $17.46 a share which is almost twice the stock’s current price. For all of 2007, the net loss was $2.74 billion, or $33.37 a share.

They blamed the state of the economy and battered stock price for the the write-off.

Accounting rules required the company to bring its balance sheets in line with its market value.

McClatchy publishes 30 daily newspapers, including The Sacramento Bee, and about 50 non-daily newspapers.

The McClatchy Company’s stock price has fallen by more than 70 percent from two years ago, before it took on billions in debt through its acquisition of Knight-Ridder Inc.

Four new Roni Deutch Tax Center franchises have opened in the Sacramento area, along with 20 others across the United States.

The Deutch tax centers are a new business spinoff of the Law Office of Roni Deutch, a Sacramento based attorney who runs a tax resolution firm that advertises nationwide.  Deutch opened her first tax center two years ago, and building on her notoriety from her many commercials, began franchising them last year.

In addition to income tax services, the tax centers will offer small-business services such as accounting, payroll and insurance.

Whole Foods has acquired smaller natural foods rival Wild Oats Markets for $565 million.

Whole Foods announced the acquisition in February, bu the Federal Trade Commission sued to block the deal on antitrust grounds. A federal appeals court recently denied the FTC’s request to temporarily block the sale.

Sacramento downtown property owner Mohammed “Moe” Mohanna has won the first round in the legal dispute with Sacramento’s Redevelopment Agency over a long delayed land swap of property along K Street that had been scheduled for redevelopment.

The City of  Sacramento is suing Mohanna and others, trying to enforce a land swap that has been stalled for several years since a fire gutted properties on the 800 block and others were demolished. Mohanna filed to have the lis pendens notice expunged. The actual court case is still pending.

Superior Court Judge Loren McMaster has ruled that the city was not legally justified in recording what’s known as a “lis pendens” (essentially a notice that there is pending litigation on the property and that any buyers or investors should be wary) on Mohanna’s and others property in the 700 block of K Street.

Andersen Corp. has opened a logistics operation in Sacramento, according to the Sacramento Area Commerce and Trade Organization. The window manufacturer has leased a 72,000-square-foot space on Rovanna Circle from Oates Investments.

Andersen’s new facility has about 30 employees, including some moving from an existing contract distribution company.

The owner of Town & Country Village is investing $5 million into improvements and bringing new tenants into the back portion of the shopping center surrounding William Glen. Donahue Schriber is improving landscaping, parking, access, buildings and signage in that section of the shopping center at Fulton and Marconi avenues.

The back portion of  Town & Country Village will be now be called The Collection, with more one of a kind, independent shops and restaurants. The Collection will  complement such specialty stores within the center as the gift and housewares local institution of William Glen and men’s clothier Bonney & Gordon.

The closing of Scofield’s Furniture made available over 18,000 square feet for a new mixture of tenants. The Collection will consist of at least 20 tenants, of which 14 have either already opened or have signed commitments with the shopping center.

Some of the new tenants are Adams Jewelers,  A Cup of Tea, a gift shop that will serve traditional high tea in the afternoon; Eyeglass Charlie’s, a designer eyewear and sunglasses shop; Starlette O’Hara, a women’s clothing store; and The Terrace Cafe, which will be serving California cuisine at breakfast and lunch.

Some existing tenants will be expanding their sites: home furnishings store FurnItalia, Bella Donna Bridal Salon, women’s clothing store Sisters’ Boutique, Tobacco Road and Viento’s Mexican Grill & Bar.

Donahue Schriber also operates Pavilions, Natomas Marketplace and Creekside Town Center.

Sacramento newspaper publisher The McClatchy Co. (publisher of the Sacramento Bee) has revised its second-quarter earnings to reflect the increased costs of ending a dispute over a newspaper publishing arrangement in Seattle, trimming its net income by six cents a share.

Last month, the Sacramento based McClatchy had issued preliminary earnings numbers of $39,200,000 from continuing operations, or 48 cents per share, but said at that time that the actual figure would have to await a final decision on how to account for a settlement in the Seattle Times dispute.

Merchants and property owners in Midtown Sacramento have voted to create a business improvement district that will levy a tax on property to finance safety, marketing and infrastructure improvements.

The Midtown Business Association conducted a petition drive collecting signatures  from property owners who will pay at least fifty percent of the assessment in the new improvement district and then captured enough votes from merchants and property owners in balloting conducted by mail.