THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 20, 1994 TAG: 9406180452
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 35 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BUSINESS WEEKLY STAFF
DATELINE: 940620 LENGTH: Long
The layoffs have pushed employment at South Hampton Roads' largest private shipyard to its lowest level in years and indicate the depths of the industry's difficulties in the face of Navy cutbacks.
{REST} Still, a top Norshipco official downplayed the long-term impact of the layoffs.
Bell Atlantic Corp. said that parts of Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk and Portsmouth will join Virginia Beach over the next three years in receiving its ``video dial tone'' services.
The disclosure was in an application for the services filed by Bell Atlantic with the Federal Communications Commission.
By 1997, the company said it intends to offer as many as 675 channels of video programming - ranging from movies on demand to electronic shopping catalogs - to 3 million households and businesses in the mid-Atlantic. About 140,000 households in Hampton Roads are now part of that $1.5 billion three-year construction plan.
Blacks in South Hampton Roads seeking home loans from NationsBank were rejected at more than twice the rate of white applicants last year despite bank efforts in recent years to increase its minority lending.
In a report of its lending activity in minority and low-income communities, NationsBank said the disparity in rejection rates between black and white applicants seeking home loans in the region continued to widen in 1993.
For black applicants, the rejection rate rose to 30.9 percent last year from 29.9 percent in 1992, reported figures compiled by the Richmond-based unit of NationsBank Corp.
AT&T Corp. is planning to close its operator-service center in downtown Norfolk as part of a massive reduction in operator facilities nationwide, union officials said.
The company confirmed that it is aggressively shutting down offices, but said it's too early to presume that the Norfolk center will close. About 140 operators work at the AT&T facility on Bute Street.
Last August, AT&T announced a major restructuring of its long-distance phone-service operations. As part of that restructuring, the company said it planned to close 77 of its 138 operator offices and eliminate as many as 4,000 of its 16,500 operator jobs by early 1995.
Catalog showroom retailer Best Products Co. said it has emerged from bankruptcy after battling creditors in court for more than three years.
The company has reorganized its debts, closing a painful period plaguing the Richmond-based retailer's 38-year history. Since 1991, when it sought protection from creditors by filing for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Best suffered millions in losses, hundreds of layoffs and dozens of store closings.
Now, freed from most of its long-term debt, incurred after a $1.1 billion leveraged buyout in 1988, Best sees itself poised for growth.
Plans for Bayville Golf Club, the 18-hole championship golf course to be built on the former site of Bayville Farms in Virginia Beach, were unveiled in conjunction with the formal kickoff the club's membership drive.
At $30,000 per membership and with Tom Fazio, a world-renowned course designer, on board, Bayville promises to be the elite club of this corner of the state, he said.
Fazio expects to break ground in September and said the course could be available for limited play in late fall of 1995 and be fully operational by spring 1996. The 7,042-yard course will be completed, Fazio said, at an estimated cost of $6.5 million.
The price of gasoline has risen 2 1/4 cents a gallon nationwide since March, reported a survey by industry analyst Tilby Lundberg. the average cost at the pump, including all grades and taxes, rose from $1.1406 on May 20 to $1.1632 on June 10, the latest Lundberg Survey of 10,000 stations reported.
The survey found the average price of gas at self-serve pumps was $1.0946 for regular unleaded, $1.2012 for mid-grade unleaded, and $1.2851 for premium unleaded.
Gas prices at several service stations around Hampton Roads seem to be consistent with Lundberg's findings. Local dealers have increased their prices at least 2 cents since Memorial Day.
Provoked by a dispute over how Virginia's largest electric utility would be managed, the State Corporation Commission launched an investigation into organizational ties between Virginia Power and its parent, Dominion Resources Inc.
In an unusual move, the SCC told Richmond-based Dominion Resources to respond to evidence it had violated a 1986 order by not allowing Virginia Power's board sufficient discretion to manage the utility and select its own officers.
The regulators' action has no direct bearing on Virginia Power's rates or level of service, but it strikes at the heart of who will control the state's largest utility.
{KEYWORDS} ALMANAC LAYOFFS SHIPYARD
by CNB