Business & Economy

A majority of City Council members in Greensboro have approved the controversial sale of a city-owned shopping center to a private developer. 

The deteriorating shopping center in the northeastern part of the city has a Family Dollar and a series of boarded up store fronts. The city has owned the property for five years but there has been no development. The city finally decided to sell the site, but many are upset.

Gene Nichol, Director of the Center on Poverty, Work & Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said on The State of Things today that the financial collapse really hurt the poor but that the problem is multifaceted.

Smithfield Foods is set to be sold to Chinese firm in a $7.1 billion deal. The Shuanghui Group is the largest meat processor in China, and they have agreed to purchase Smithfield Foods to satisfy a large demand for American-made pork in China. If the deal goes through, it would be the largest ever Chinese acquisition of an American company.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina employees will soon move out of their landmark Chapel Hill headquarters and consolidate operations in Durham. The health insurer purchased two buildings on its Durham campus where they could move employees starting in September. 

Spokesman Lew Borman says the move is expected to save the company up to $2.5 million in operating costs annually.  As for the signature building they now call home, Borman says its fate is yet to be determined.