Cody Fletcher joins Eric Barnes on The Sidebar.

These days, hotels and department stores are struggling. Which may explain the proposed conversions of a sprawling East Memphis hotel and a former Hickory Ridge Mall Sears building.

“This has been a project that has been somewhat difficult to develop, but we have persisted,” developer says.

The Heights Line has advanced a few more steps toward reality. The design of the 1.75-mile path, a logo and a one-time economic impact study have been completed.

Henry J. Maier, the president and CEO of FedEx Ground who has worked for the company more than 35 years, is retiring.

Engineer Harvey Marcom worked behind the scenes, but he played a big role for nearly six decades in forming the built environment of the Memphis area. The president of The Reaves Firm died on Saturday, Jan. 23.

After receiving a text, people would have four hours to get to a vaccination site.

Kyle Veazey, the deputy chief operating officer for the city of Memphis, is moving to ALSAC, the fund-raising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, as senior vice president for executive operations. 

The California-based company that provides logistics services to other companies will open its second fulfillment center in Memphis, bringing its total footprint in Memphis to about 600,000 square feet.

With feet on the ground and money for Uber rides, researchers hope to stop barriers that keep Black people out of treatment.

Demolition has started to clear space for Alliance Healthcare Service’s $9 million-plus development in an economically distressed area of Summer Avenue.

In 2016, Aqila Augusta founded Edge Entity, a Black-owned company specializing in hair growth products for women and men. In the five years since, she’s established a Bartlett storefront, located at 2958 Elmore Park Rd., and turned a kitchen experiment into a multimillion dollar business with customers from all over the world.

The Buy Nothing Midtown/Downtown Facebook group boasted more than 2,000 members as of Jan. 23. It’s one of several in the Memphis area.

An online petition opposing the opening of a Petland shop in Memphis has drawn more than 21,000 digital signatures. But the daughter of Petland’s founder mounts a defense, complete with Shelby County statistics on dogs placed into homes by animal welfare organizations in Shelby County.

The emergency-use therapy is available for people who test positive and who could become severely ill due to age or underlying conditions.

A Cummins manufacturing plant that rebuilds turbochargers in Memphis will close, eliminating 300 jobs.

The museum in Overton Park will reopen under the new Health Directive 17.

The Downtown Memphis Commission has hired a search committee consultant to help meet its goal of identifying by Feb. 25 the final candidate for the CEO/president position.

Major films including “Wonder Woman 1984” and “One Night in Miami” will be showing as theaters reopen following the newest health directive. 

Hear the experiences of three exceptional women in business as they tell the story of their professional journeys at our Women in Business Virtual Seminar on Feb. 25 at 3:30 p.m.

The building that for years housed the restaurant is coming down to make room for a new Sleep Number store and Aspen Dental office.

The county’s large-scale evictions, relatively affordable housing and median unemployment rate make it representative of hundreds of communities in the nation. 

Eight transactions for Class A industrial space, totaling 2.4 million square feet, have either been completed or are pending during the first three weeks of January, reports Cushman & Wakefield/Commercial Advisors.

One company distributes pharmaceutical or medical device products. Another sells information-technology and WiFi-related items. And a third sells industrial tools. 

AutoZone in Germantown is moving from its current location near Kroger on Farmington Boulevard to a larger spot on Poplar Avenue.