🚂Burlington Northern settles suit; CrossFit Games picks Ft Worth; Mansfield development coming soon

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🗞️NEWS OF THE DAY:

BNSF Railway has agreed to settle a closely watched privacy class action rather than head to trial for a second time. No terms were announced. A judge's decision in June had given the company a new chance to fight alleged damages from truck drivers in Illinois who claimed it unlawfully collected their fingerprints.

Footwear company Hey Dude is opening a store at Grapevine Mills this fall. Known for its lightweight, casual, affordable shoes, the Italian-born company launched in 2008 and was acquired by Crocs in 2021 for $2.5 billion.

New hotel, office and retail space are planned for Mansfield. A $70-million development on Highway 287 called Heritage Park Mansfield will begin construction next year and is expected to create 250 jobs. The project includes a 125-room Courtyard by Marriott, 60,000-square-feet of office space and 20,000-square-feet of retail, restaurant and medical space.

Calvera Partners has acquired Saddlehorn Vista Apartments, a 192-unit multifamily community in west Fort Worth near Interstates 820 and 30. This is Calvera’s first acquisition in D-FW, said Brian Chuck, managing principal: "We are excited to establish a presence in D-FW, a market that we have been tracking for some time. In Saddlehorn, we are acquiring a solid asset at an attractive basis with strong, in-place cash flow and value creation potential.”

Second physical therapy cohort of Techstars begins. Techstars is an investment firm that provides access to capital, mentorship and programming for early-stage entrepreneurs. Partnering with HSC, the city, the county and Goff Capital, Techstars has gathered 10 high-growth, early-stage startups in the physical health industry to grow and scale through new technology.

Tarrant County commissioners have voted to hire assistant county administrator Chandler Merritt as the county’s next top administrator. Merritt has been an assistant administrator in Tarrant County since May 2021. He previously served as a chief of staff for former County Judge Glen Whitley.

It was a mixed bag for development activity in Fort Worth last month. New commercial permits and overall new building permits fell month-to-month and year-over-year. Detached multifamily permits fell sharply. The bright spot was residential dwelling permits, which have crept up. For details from the Dallas Business Journal, click here.

Champagne taste on a beer budget: Demand for champagne is moderating after the post-Covid boom, with consumption at home bearing the brunt. However, demand in nightclubs hasn’t fallen off. A trade group expects its producers to ship 314 million bottles, down 3.7% from 2022.

U.S. retailers will hire the fewest number of seasonal workers for this holiday season since the final quarter of 2008, because of increased labor costs and shaky consumer confidence, according to a report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. As of mid-September, U.S.-based companies have announced just 8,000 planned hires for the holiday season, compared with the 258,201 planned hires announced by employers at the same point in 2022. An exception is Amazon, which announced that it will hire 250,000 workers, 67% more than in 2022.

Small businesses are raising alarms over difficulty accessing capital. And the Fed’s proposal to require large banks to hold more capital will potentially make it worse. Those are the findings of a Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Voices survey of 1,556 small business owners. Seventy percent of small business owners who applied for a new business loan during the past year reported it was difficult to access capital (61% in an April 2023 survey). Seventy-six percent say difficulty accessing affordable capital has negatively impacted their business and 73% say rising interest rates are having a negative impact.

Today in history (September 20):

• 1969: Virtual 'cartoon' band Archies' single "Sugar Sugar" hits #1

• 1973: Billie Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs in a Battle of the Sexes tennis match

• 1980: First Whole Foods store opens in Austin, TX

🏆PEOPLE ON THE MOVE:

• Tarrant Appraisal District: Selects William Durham as Interim Chief Appraiser

• First Horizon Bank: Announces Bill Kresser as SVP, Private Client Relationship Manager

• ECI Software Solutions: Announces Riz Karin as Chief Customer Officer

• Housing Channel: Hires Julie Smith as Operations Officer

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