Real Estate Daily News Buzz is designed to give news snippets to readers that our (yet to be award winning) editors thought you could use to start your day. They come from various business perspectives, real estate, government, the Fed, local news, and the stock markets to save you time. Here you will find the headlines and what the news buzz for the day will be.

The Dow Jones Industrial average rose 167 points, or 1.1%, to close at 15,761 on Friday. The Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 23 points, or 1.3%, to 1,770. The NASDAQ composite rose 61 points, or 1.6%, to 3,919. The price of oil rose 40 cents Friday to close at $94.60 a barrel.

SURPRISE! US ADDED 204,000 JOBS IN OCTOBER

WASHINGTON – Despite all the warning to expect the contrary, a burst of hiring in October added a surprisingly strong 204,000 jobs to the economy in a month when the government was partly shut down for 16 days. And employers added far more jobs in August and September than previously thought. The unemployment rate rose to 7.3% from 7.2% in September, the Labor Department said Friday. But that was likely because furloughed federal workers were temporarily counted as unemployed. The surge in jobs shows the economy was stronger in October than many economists had expected. Activity at service companies and factories also accelerated last month, an earlier report showed. The figures signal that many U.S. companies didn’t bother or perhaps liked  the government partial shutdown.

TUESDAY NOV 13: TUCSON EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION AND FY13 FINANCIALS ON AGENDA

TUCSON – At their Study Session next Tuesday, November 13th, Mayor and Council will hear a report from staff on preliminary unaudited FY 2013 financial results for the General Fund and provide an update on the 1st quarter General Fund financial results. This report will show a General Fund fund balance of about $54M, which is about $8M less than the previous year. At their Study Session November 26th, M&C is expected to consider three possible increases to employee compensation upon review of fund balance information contained in this report. M&C memo on preliminary unaudited FY 2013 financials: https://1.usa.gov/195PJ6u

STITELER EXPECTS TO BREAK GROUND ON 7-STORY, 150-ROOM HOTEL

TUCSON – Developer Scott Stiteler says his upcoming downtown hotel project, a 150-room, seven-story tower at the Northwest corner of Fifth and Broadway, is now about two months into its design phase. The hotel, tentatively to be called AC Tucson, will reflect the European boutique style of the AC Hotels brand, which Marriott acquired in 2010 and will soon reveal across the country, mostly in major urban centers like Manhattan, San Francisco, Chicago, and Miami. The average daily rate would be about $145, Stiteler told the Rio Nuevo board in July. Stiteler said the hotel is now about two months in to its design phase. Project leaders have traveled to Spain, the birthplace of the AC brand. He expects construction to begin this summer, with the hotel completed about a year and a half later.

BERNANKE: FED HAS GREATER POWER TO COMBAT CRISISES NOW

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chairman Ben Bernanke says the Federal Reserve is drafting rules to close large insolvent banks without bringing down the broader financial system, one of many steps regulators must take to prevent another financial crisis. Bernanke says the absence of a process to deal with systemically important institutions in 2008 left regulators facing the “terrible choices of a bailout or allowing a potentially destabilizing collapse.” Bernanke is making the comments at a conference sponsored by the International Monetary Fund Thursday. The financial overhaul law passed by Congress in 2010 gave regulators better tools to close down large financial institutions, he said. The Fed and other regulators are working to implement those rules now.

SAC CAPITAL PLEADS GUILTY IN $1.8B DEAL

NEW YORK (AP) — SAC Capital Advisors has pleaded guilty to criminal fraud charges in a record $1.8 billion deal with the government. The company’s longtime general counsel Peter Nussbaum entered the plea to wire fraud and securities fraud Friday in Manhattan. But a federal judge didn’t immediately accept the plea, saying she’d wait until a probation report is made. The plea comes four days after the federal government announced it had reached a deal requiring the largest penalty ever for insider trading. The deal requires the Stamford, Conn.-based hedge fund to close its business to outside investors. It also allows prosecutors to continue its criminal investigation and spares no individuals from scrutiny, including its founder, Steven A. Cohen. Cohen was accused by federal regulators over the summer in a civil action of failing to prevent insider trading at the company. He has disputed the allegations.

US CONSUMER SPENDING SLOWS TO 0.2% GAIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumers slowed their spending in September, even as overall income grew at solid pace for the second straight month. Consumer spending rose 0.2% in September, after at 0.3% gain the previous month, the Commerce Department reported Friday. Americans cut spending on long-lasting manufactured goods 1.3%. That partly reflected a drop in auto sales. Labor Day weekend auto sales were counted in August. Income rose 0.5% in September, matching the August gain. The increases in both months were the strongest since February. September’s gain was helped by the end of government furloughs, which had reduced federal pay in the previous two months. The gain in income and the slowdown in spending meant consumers saved 4.9% of their after-tax income, up from 4.7% in August.

DALLAS FIRM TO BUILD BRAIN TREATMENT INJURY CENTER IN SURPRISE

SURPRISE, AZ – A $15 million medical facility specializing in the rehabilitation of traumatic brain-injury patients would bring 125 new jobs to the city by fall 2016 under an agreement expected to be approved next week by the City Council. The deal, with Dallas-based Cobalt Medical Treatment, would pave the way for construction of a 50,000-square-foot Advanced Rehabilitation Center on an approximately 5-acre undeveloped tract off Bell and Dysart roads. Surprise officials would use $160,000 from the city’s economic-development contingency fund to pay fees associated with the project, including development review, civil construction review, civil permit, building permit and plan review. The firm must obtain a certificate of occupancy by Aug. 1, 2015. “A project like this aligns perfectly with the Council’s Strategic Plan,” said Mayor Sharon Wolcott after the plan was presented by officials from the city and Cobalt to the council Tuesday night at City Hall, 16000 N. Civic Center Plaza. “Job creation and the recruitment of new health care operations are cornerstones of the plan.” Full story

MOHAVE COUNTY DECIDES AGAINST WOULD-BE DEVELOPERS

KINGMAN – The Mohave County Board of Supervisors may have put the final nail in the coffin of any commercial development on 285 acres of the former Silverado master planned community. The Board unanimously denied allowing developers more time to meet the conditions of rezoning the property from residential to general commercial/highway frontage after hearing from three residents opposed to the extension Monday. The land is located along both sides of U.S. 93 between Hidden Valley Drive and Hackberry Road. See full story in the Daily Miner.

Real Estate Daily News Buzz  is designed to give news snippets to readers that our (yet to be award winning) editors thought you could use to start your day. They come from various business perspectives, real estate, government, the Fed, local news, and the stock markets to save you time. Here you will find the headlines and what the news buzz for the day will be.

The Dow Jones Industrial average rose 24 points, or 0.2%, to close at 15,639 Monday. The Standard & Poor’s 500 rose six points, or 0.4%, to 1,768. The NAsdaq composite rose 15 points, or 0.4%, to 3,937. Benchmark U.S. crude for December delivery rose 1 cent to close at $94.62 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Wholesale gasoline lost 2 cents to $2.53 a gallon.

TODAY IS ELECTION DAY IN TUCSON AND PHOENIX

Tucson and Phoenix are holding city elections Tuesday, with residents choosing city council members. In Tucson, the council is all Democrat, so even one of the Republican challengers for Wards 3 and 5 – Ben Buehler-Garcia and Mike Polak II – could break that clique. All voters, in a city wide election, will vote for all the wards. The outcome in Phoenix could mean a big power shift, while in Tucson one or both Republican candidates would break an all-Democrat council, the nine-seat Phoenix City Council is currently split between solid liberals and firm conservatives. In Tucson, voters should go to the polls for a replacement ballot or to drop off their ballot in this City wide, all mail-in election.

TRI POINTE MERGING WITH WEYERHAEUSER FOR $2.7 BILLION

IRVINE, CA – Tri Pointe Homes Inc. is combining with Weyerhaeuser Co.’s homebuilding business in a deal valued at about $2.7 billion, looking to become a bigger player in the sector as the housing market continues its recovery. Tri Pointe said Monday that the transaction will make it one of the 10 biggest U.S. homebuilders based on estimated combined equity market value. Until now, Tri Pointe’s primary focus has been on midrange to upscale single-family homes in major metropolitan areas in southern and northern California. It recently added the Colorado market to its portfolio, but the deal with Weyerhaeuser expands its reach even further.

APPLE TO BRING 2,000 JOBS TO FORMER FISRT SOLAR MESA FACILITY

PHOENIX – Apple, Inc. confirmed Monday that is locating a domestic manufacturing plant to Mesa in the former First Solar facility. For earlier story on First Solar click here. Gov. Jan Brewer and the Arizona Commerce Authority announced the site selection. Apple will bring in 700 permanent jobs and create another 1,300 construction jobs to finish the build-out of the empty First Solar plant. Construction costs were not immediately available. Apple officials also issued a statement noting they are partnering with the Salt River Project to power the plant with solar and renewable sources.

OFFICE DEPOT OFFICEMAX MERGER WINS US ANTITRUST APPROVAL

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission voted to close its seven-month investigation into the merger of Office Depot and OfficeMax on Monday. The agency said the market has changed significantly since 1997, when it derailed Staple’s acquisition of Office Depot. This clears the way for the office-supply companies to create a single retailer to compete with Staples. Office Depot and OfficeMax, the second and third largest office supply chains said the merged company would have more than 2,100 stores and combined revenue of about $18 billion compared with more the $24 billion in sales for Staples.

MICROSOFT / APPLE AMONG 6 TECH FIRMS ASKING NSA BE REINED IN

WASHINGTON – Six of the biggest U.S. technology firms are urging Congress to rein in the National Security Agency by requiring more transparency about surveillance and improved privacy protections. In a letter to a Senate Judiciary Committee, the tech giants applauded the introduction of the USA Freedom Act aimed at ending bulk collection of phone records and improve privacy protection in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. “Recent disclosures regarding surveillance activity raise important concerns both in the United States and abroad,” said the letter signed by Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo and AOL. The companies, which have failed to win efforts to disclose details of their cooperation with U.S. surveillance programs, said more transparency would “help to counter erroneous reports that we permit intelligence agencies ‘direct access’ to our companies’ servers or that we are participants in a bulk Internet records collection program.”

SUNTECH POWER GETTING NEW $150 M GOVERNMENT OF CHINA BAILOUT

SHANGHAI – Troubled Suntech Power, a Chinese maker of solar products, said it would fight being forced into bankruptcy in the U.S. and was to receive a $150 million local government bailout. Suntech, once the world’s biggest maker of solar cells and panels, sought market share by driving down prices to levels which some competitors claim were loss-making. Suntech announced in March that its main subsidiary in China would seek bankruptcy and restructuring. A government-backed firm, Wuxi Guolian Development Group, has now pledged to invest at least $150 million in the parent company, according to a Suntech statement this week. Guolian is backed by the government of the eastern city of Wuxi, where Suntech is based.

US AIRWAY’S FAILURE TO PROVIDE WHEELCHAIR – FINED $1.2 MILLION

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Monday fined US Airways $1.2 million for failing to provide adequate wheelchair assistance to passengers in Philadelphia and Charlotte, N.C. The fine is one of the largest ever assessed by DOT in a disability case. Of the $1.2 million fine, US Airways may use up to $500,000 for improvements in its service to passengers with disabilities that are beyond what DOT rules require. These include hiring managers to ensure the quality of the airline’s disability services in Philadelphia and Charlotte, creating a telephone line to assist these passengers, purchasing tablets and other equipment to monitor assistance requests, providing compensation to passengers with disability-related complaints, and programming the airline’s computers so that boarding passes identify passengers who request special services.

CANADA’S BROOKFIELD PROPERTY ADDS $1.4B TO GENERAL GROWTH

Toronto-based Brookfield Property Partners has agreed to buy an additional $1.4 billion worth of General Growth stock, bringing its stake in the Chicago–based REIT to 32%. “As a result of this and General Growth’s strong organic growth prospects, we believe that the investment will earn a return that exceeds our target range of 12% to 15%,” said Ric Clark, CEO of Brookfield Property Group, in a press release. Brookfield Property Partners, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management, owns 300 office and retail properties totaling 250 million-square-feet. Its portfolio also includes a 37% stake in General Growth spinoff Rouse Properties and 2.9 million-square-feet of Brazilian retail properties. The transaction is part of a reorganization of a Brookfield Asset Management-led consortium of investors that helped recapitalize General Growth when it emerged from bankruptcy protection in March 2010. In April 2013, Brookfield Property Partners bought Brookfield’s interest in the consortium. Now, several of the original investors have cashed out, and the consortium is being consolidated. Its total stake in General Growth will be 40 percent after the latest deal closes in the fourth quarter.

CNL COMMERCAIL REAL ESTATE HAS $300 MILLION TO INVEST

Orlando-based CNL Commercial Real Estate plans to invest $300 million during the next 18 months on retail, industrial and office acquisitions in the South and Texas. The investment comes in addition to $50 million in real estate projects under way and an additional $100 million for projects that have not broken ground. The new development fund comes from a variety of private sources, is not a real estate investment trust and is not being sold through CNL Securities, according to a company spokeswoman. Moses Salcido, formerly with Lee & Associates, now CNL Commercial Real Estate’s new managing director, said he is optimistic the current business cycle will present continued opportunities in the company’s core markets. He described the Orlando area as “probably more of a build market than a buy market.” Class-A assets have “pretty much been picked over,” which means that the focus is on producing and delivering more inventory, he added. To learn more visit https://www.cnl.com/commercialrealestate/contact.aspx

BLACKBERRY ABANDONS BID TO SELL ITSELF, REPLACED CEO INSTEAD

BlackBerry abandoned its bid to sell itself on Monday, and announced it will replace its chief executive. Fairfax Financial, BlackBerry’s largest shareholder with a 10% stake, said it won’t buy the struggling smartphone company and take it private but said that Fairfax and other investors will inject $1 billion as part of a revised investment proposal. BlackBerry said CEO Thorsten Heins is stepping down. Heins took over in early 2012 after the company lost billions in market value, but he failed to turn the company around with BlackBerry’s new devices this year. Former Sybase chief executive John Chen has been appointed chair of BlackBerry’s board of directors and will serve as interim CEO.

CHALLENGES FACING TWITTER HEADING INTO IPO THIS WEEK

As Twitter prepares to complete its initial public offering of stock this week, the San Francisco company’s history of losses totaling nearly $500 million is raising questions about its ability to turn a cultural phenomenon into a sustainable business. Twitter has built a digital town square that’s teeming with activity but riddled with financial potholes. Seven years after co-founder Jack Dorsey sent the first tweet through the online messaging service, more than 500 million posts are shared each day by everyone from the Dalai Lama to Justin Bieber. But all the chirping hasn’t translated to profits — nor is it expected to any time soon.

HEDGE FUND GIANT SAC CAPITAL TO PAY $1.8 BILLION FRAUD CHARGES

SAC Capital Advisors will plead guilty to criminal fraud charges, stop investing money for others and pay $1.8 billion — the largest financial penalty in history for insider trading — to resolve criminal and civil claims against the hedge fund giant, the government announced Monday. The government said in a letter to judges presiding over Manhattan cases that the “proposed global resolution” of the criminal and civil cases against SAC Capital Advisors and related companies also includes an agreement that SAC will cease operating as an investment adviser and will not accept any additional funds from third-party investors. The company will pay a $900 million fine and forfeit another $900 million to the federal government, though $616 million that SAC companies have already agreed to pay to settle parallel actions by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will be deducted from the $1.8 billion.

J&J TO PAY $2.2 BILLION TO SETLLE MARKETING ALLEGATIONS

WASHINGTON — Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay over $2.2 billion to resolve criminal and civil allegations that the company promoted powerful psychiatric drugs for unapproved uses in children, seniors and disabled patients, the Department of Justice announced on Monday. The agreement is the third-largest settlement with a drugmaker in U.S. history, and the latest in a string of actions against drug companies allegedly putting profits ahead of patients. Justice Department officials alleged that J&J used illegal marketing tactics and kickbacks to persuade physicians and pharmacists to prescribe Risperdal and Invega, both antipsychotic drugs, and Natrecor, which is used to treat heart failure.

KELLOGG CUTTING JOBS AS CEREAL SALES SLIDE

NEW YORK — Kellogg is planning to cut its global workforce by 7% as the maker of Frosted Flakes, Rice Krispies and Special K struggles to convince Americans to eat more cereal. According to FactSet, Kellogg has 31,000 employees, suggesting the company plans to cut about 2,170 jobs. The company, which also makes Pop Tarts and Eggo waffles, also said Monday it expects earnings per share for the year to be toward the lower end of its previous projection as a result of weaker-than-expected sales.

MICROSOFT ENTERS 20-YEAR DEAL FOR TEXAS WIND POWER

HOUSTON — It takes a lot of energy to store all the data 1 billion people and 20 million businesses plug into their computers, phones, tablets and gadgets. So as part of an effort to become carbon neutral, Microsoft Corp. has entered a 20-year deal to buy power from a new wind farm in Texas, the first time the tech giant is directly purchasing electricity from a specific source. The deal announced Monday between Microsoft and RES Americas is being funded in part by money collected from a “carbon fee,” an internal tax of sorts that the company has been charging its departments for every ton of carbon produced. Microsoft also hopes the deal will be a model for other parts of its global operations, said Brian Janous, the company’s director of energy strategy.