• 817 BIZ
  • Posts
  • 🎨Kimbell acquires $9M painting; Westlake Marriott gets makeover; Southlake lands tenants

🎨Kimbell acquires $9M painting; Westlake Marriott gets makeover; Southlake lands tenants

+More bite-size news to keep you informed and make you smarter.

September 29, 2023

817 BIZ is a free newsletter bringing you a quick read of local business info every Mon, Wed and Fri. New here? Sign-up for free with this link. If this email isn’t looking quite right, click the link at top right.

🗞️NEWS OF THE DAY:

Susan Alanis has been hired as Deputy Chancellor of the University of North Texas System. Beginning Oct. 2, she will report to Chancellor Michael Williams and be responsible for the daily operations of human resources, strategic infrastructure, and finance. Alanis most recently spent four years as Chief Operations Officer at Tarrant County College, and nine years before that as an assistant city manager for Fort Worth. Alanis replaces Greg Anderson, who is retiring.

The Kimbell Art Museum has acquired Going to Market, Early Morning, circa 1773, by Thomas Gainsborough (British, 1727–1788). Long renowned as one of Gainsborough’s greatest paintings and a masterpiece of British art, Going to Market, Early Morning situates a scene of contemporary social life within an exquisitely rendered landscape and demonstrates the artist’s mastery of light effects, color, composition, and fluent and varied brushwork. Reported cost was $9 million.

Thomas Gainsborough, Going to Market, Early Morning, c. 1773. Kimbell Art Museum. Acquired in honor of Kay and Ben Fortson.

Seat Geeks in the air: Sabre Corporation has a new AI-powered retailing solution for airlines – Sabre Upgrade IQ. It can help airlines generate incremental and diversified revenue by optimizing the available inventory in their premium cabins. Upgrade IQ allows travelers the opportunity to bid for a seat upgrade at any pre-travel stage while IQ dynamically re-prices upgrade offers as bids are received.

Arlington shopping center Cooper Street Plaza has been sold to Vista Property Co. The retail center on Interstate 20 was 97.5% occupied at the time of the sale. Shopping center sales have accelerated this year while purchases of other commercial properties have slowed.

Twelve new stores have been announced for Southlake Town Square, including four that are new to the DFW market. Southern Tides, Chubbies, Waggle Golf and Fount are opening their first stores in DFW. Chubbies has a store in Houston and is owned by Grapevine-based Solo Brands. Austin-based boot brand Tecovas opened last Friday, and Postino WineCafĂŠ opened Monday.

The Marriott Hotel in Westlake is getting a makeover from new owners. Grapevine-based NewcrestImage has purchased the hotel with partner Dabu Group. The 294-room property is on Highway 114 and was one of the original buildings in the Solana mixed-use development. Newmark Lodging Capital Markets arranged the sale of the property.

The Westlake Marriott was built in the 1980s and was designed by Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta.

None too home-y: During August, 15.7% of Americans with home-purchase agreements canceled their contracts before finalization, up from 14.3% a year ago. And sales of newly built homes in the U.S. fell 8.7% in August vs. July.

The eyes of Texas: The Tarrant County College Trinity River Health Sciences Department has a new arrival -- a Siemens Symbia Evo gamma camera that is 15-feet long, weighs 7,000+ pounds and cost $249,058. It is used to train students for careers in nuclear medicine, which has been called "inside-out radiography.” Unlike traditional X-ray imaging, the radioactive substance is placed inside the patient’s body rather than in an external mechanism.

The Dallas-Fort Worth Clean Cities Coalition (DFWCC) will host the National Drive Electric Week beginning at 2 pm. Sunday at the Tanger Outlets in Fort Worth. Experience various makes, models and price points of electric vehicles and take advantage of an opportunity to test drive a vehicle. Food, games, sustainability education and more will be available.

 

Grapevine-based GameStop has named Ryan Cohen as CEO. The billionaire activist investor won’t receive compensation for his work. The move comes more than three months after GameStop fired then-CEO Matthew Furlong, and after CFO Diana Saadeh-Jajeh resigned. Shares of GameStop surged after the announcement.

Fort Worth’s Higginbotham has aligned with Florida’s Stahl & Associates Insurance, the largest private agency in the state. It is Higginbotham's second alliance in Florida.

“I’m afraid ‘It’s a surprise”, doesn’t cut it as a growth strategy.”

👢👢PEOPLE ON THE MOVE:

  • Trinity Metro: Reed Lanham has been named Vice President of Rail

  • Dream City Sports: Co-Founders Brian Jones and Scott Parsinen launch sports marketing / NIL company

  • Canyon Ranch: Announces Mark Rivers as CEO; he has been head of resort development

History book: (1916) American oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller becomes the world’s first billionaire; (1966) The Chevrolet Camaro, originally named Panther, is introduced; (2008) Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points, its largest single-day point loss, following the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual.

NOTABLE & QUOTABLE: 

“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”  

—John D. Rockefeller (July 8, 1839 - May 23, 1937)

✂️SNIPPETS:

  • Consumers plan to cut holiday spending in face of rising prices, according to a Trustpilot survey of 2,000 U.S. adults. On average, consumers said they plan to spend 39% less this year than they did in 2022.

  • Is a graduate degree worth it? That’s what SmartAsset sought to determine in a recent study of metro areas and the median income of those with a graduate or professional degree versus a bachelors degree. The average annual income of a DFW resident with a bachelor's degree is $65,694, while those with graduate degrees make $82,553 per year, a difference of $16,859.

  • Becoming a millionaire is one of the most common pursuits among the financially savvy, and it's not exactly as rare as you might imagine. Some 8.8% of U.S. adults are considered millionaires according to career planning site Zippia.

Some links may expire after initial posting or be paywall protected.