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Iowa's unemployment rate ticked up again last month, equaling a 26-year high set in August. The 6.7 percent October unemployment rate  - up from 6.6 percent in September - still isn't bad by national standards, however. And it isn't nearly as bad as the state's post-depression record. That record was set in the early 1980s recession that took place simultaneously with Iowa's deep farm crisis. The year was 1982, when the unemployment rate rate climbed from 7.7 percent in January to 8.5 ...

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If it seems like Christmas is a free-for-all at the mall, you haven't seen anything yet. Lindale Mall is planning an event called the Free-for-All on Dec. 2 and Dec. 4 that may prove entertaining. The mall will distribute tickets over the coming weeks to participate. A few lucky winners drawn on Dec. 4 will compete in a mano a mano gift opening competition. Confronted with dozens of wrapped holiday packages, they will open packages as fast as they can until one ...

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Iowa's late grain harvest is to blame for higher gas prices in the state this month, state officials say. Harvest activity always uses enormous quantities of fuel on the farm, but this year it's even more because the crop matured slowly during the unusually cool, damp growing conditions of the past summer. That left farmers with grain that had a higher moisture content, and took more fuel to dry down to marketable condition. "Iowa has recently seen an increase in fuel demand due to ...

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The new owner of the former Agriprocessors plant in Postville is trying a  new direction, with plans for new lines of oven-baked beef and poultry. Agri Star Meat & Poultry got a boost for those plans Thursday when state officials okayed a $600,000 grant from the Grow Iowa Values Financial Assistance Program. The grant will help the plant add 168 jobs from its current 350. The project will include the installation of fryers and ovens.  Agri Star is one of the largest kosher meat ...

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A sheriff's sale of the Crowne Plaza Five Seasons in Cedar Rapids on Dec. 22 is expected to finally give the hotel's largest secured creditor full legal possession. A foreclosure action against Kronos Hotels LLC of Atlanta for possession of the Crowne Plaza has been dragging through Linn County District Court for more than a year. CW Capital Asset Management LLC filed the foreclosure in October 2008 against Atlanta-based Kronos. By that time, Kronos already had plenty of mud on its face  for failing ...

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Rockwell Coillins has introduced two new helmet-mounted displays using Organic Light Emitting Diode display technology. The Cedar Rapids electronics company said the Simeye SX45 and SimEye SX6 are designed to work for simulation and training experience. Weighing less than one pound, the new  helmet-mounted displays operate on less than three watts of power, and can also be powered through a USB (universal serial bus) port. They attach to a helmet or a newly designed lightweight headband. The new models "achieve a level of visual ...

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Single family home sales were up 8 percent in Cedar Rapids during October to the highest level in at least a decade. The Cedar Rapids Area Association of Realtors reports that 422 single-family homes were sold from its multiple listing service in October, at an average price of $155,529. That is the highest number of homes sold in October in at least a decade, according to Kevin Platz, association executive. Sales in the Iowa City Area Association of Realtors multiple listing service ...

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The Towne Centre building in Cedar Rapids has found a savior. The block-long building at 201-221 Second Avenue SE was one of the jewels of the downtown Cedar Rapids office real estate market before the June 2008 Cedar River flood. Its office space was rated Class A, commanding some of the market's best rents. Then the flood hit, damaging the building's basement and ground floor extensively. Just one other small problem complicated matters. Its owner was a unit of Lehman Brothers, the Wall Street ...

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Cedar Rapids shot up 29 spots this year in a Milken Institute index that claims to demonstrate which local economies are better at sustaining jobs in a difficult economy. Cedar Rapids was ranked 57th in the institute's ranking  of the 200 largest metro areas, up from 86 in 2008.. Iowa City was ranked 22, up from 25th in the 2008 ranking of smallest metros. The big shift in rankings among Iowa cities was in the Quad Cities, which rose from 148th in 2008 to 80th in 2009. Des Moines dropped ...

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The U.S. Navy has awarded a four-year contract to Rockwell Collins to supply ARC-210 multi-mode radios. The contract has a potential value of $450 million over the four-year life of the program, Rockwell Collins officials said. The ARC-210 is an airborne multi-band, multi-mode radio. It has become a mainstay of U.S. defense communications, with 28,000 radios fielded on more than 180 types of aircraft, vessels and vehicles.

The University of Iowa's bid to become the U.S. Department of Energy's designated test lab for supersize wind turbines received a boost Tuesday from the Iowa Power Fund Board. The board authorized contract negotiations with the UI on its request for a $15 million Iowa Power Fund Board grant. The grant would help build a $78 million facility called the Wind Energy National Test Institute, at the UI Research Park at Oakdale. Iowa has plenty of competition for the federal project, which ...

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Little Caesar's has opened the first of several oplanned pizza take-out stores in the Corridor. The grand opening of the new location 2210 Edgewood Road SW, Suite 500 in Cedar Rapids will be 10 a.m. Wednesday. Former Marine sergeant Jake Kennel, co-owner of the Cedar Rapids franchise, said he planned the opening to coincide with Veteran’s Day and encourages area veterans to join him in the grand opening ceremonies.  (Kennel was able to jumpstart his franchise. He utilized a Little Caeser's veteran's program, ...

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Monica's restaurant plans to expand from its location on Mormon Trek Boulevard in Iowa City to the 303 2nd St., Coralville, which housed Sluggers before the June 2008 flood. Monica's will have about 40 percent more space and an expanded menu after the move, according to owner Randy Larson. He said the restaurant will keep its Italian specialty, but expand its selections of American favorites to take up about half of the menu. They will include such heart fare as meat loaf, ...

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Thomas L. Cardella & Associates is adding 55 positions at its Coralville customer contact center to take inbound orders from a major online retailer. The Cedar Rapids-based company said it will be hiring full- and part-time employees for both evening and weekend shifts. It will begin training for the positions on Nov. 16 and 21. Cardella & Associates has grown in just over one year to four locations in Iowa, and has plans to open more locations. It currently has 700 employees. Job-seekers ...

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A court-appointed bankruptcy trustee has begun taking steps to liquidate the rental properties of  Cedar Rapids landlord Robert Miell. Bankruptcy trustee Renee Hanrahan this week filed motions to abandon five Miell properties either because the secured debt on the property exceeds their value, or because they are of no value to the bankruptcy estate. Hanrahan also asked a bankruptcy judge to approve a contract with Mike Graf and Coldwell Banker Hedges Realty to help sell the properties. She disclosed that Graf's company, ...

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A new Canadian parent could be a positive for a Cedar Rapids producer of GPS-based intelligent transit systems used on buses and fleet vehicles that has been through several owners. Trapeze Software, a unit of Toronto-based Constellation Software, closed this week on its acquisition of the Continental Public Transit Division of German automotive giant Continental AG. It will be known locally as Trapeze ITS USA. Intelligent transportation systems typically combine computers with Global Positioning Systems technologies to tell fleet operators where vehicles are ...

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Archer Daniels Midland's stock is up at mid-day despite a 53 percent plunge in fourth-quarter profit. Everybody, it seems, knew it would be a rough quarter for the Decatur, Ill.-based food and biofuels processor because of slumping commodities prices. ADM reported earnings of $496 million, or 77 cents per share., compared to $1.04 billion, or $1.62 per share in the year-earlier quarter. The trading price of ADM shares climbed  $1.06 per share, to $31.60, a gain of 3.6 percent, at mid-day on the New ...

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A new Wal-Mart Supercenter planned for Iowa City will be a little less super than originally outlined. A request to trim 25,000 square feet off the size of a new Wal-Mart Supercenter at 1001 Highway 1 west and create two additional commercial lots is on the Nov. 6 agenda for the Iowa City Planning and Zoning Commission. The request will reduce the size of the store to 150,000 square feet. Wal-Mart spokesman Ryan Irsik said the downsizing is part of a trend at ...

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The king is back on Mount Vernon Road in Cedar Rapids  - the Burger King, that is. Mount Vernon Road lost its Burger King on April 24, when it caught fire and then exploded just about 30 minutes before opening. Nobody was hurt, but there was plenty of damage. About $600,000 in repairs and improvements later, the Burger King reopened Saturday.  Beaton Inc. of Cedar Rapids, owns the restaurant at 3030 Mount Vernon Road SE, along with about 18 other Burger Kings. Company ...

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Alliant Energy reported a quarterly loss of  $44.3 million in the  third quarter, as it lowered its full-year earnings forecast bya bout 10 cents per share. The parent company of Interstate Power & Light in Cedar Rapids had a poor quarter due to the mild summer and fall, which reduced electrical demand for air conditioning, and the recession, which slashed industrial energy demand. The company reported earnings per share of 40 cents, versus $1.16 for the third quarter of 2008. Diminished energy demand ...

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China plans to lift its ban on imports of pork from the United States that was imposed in May after the outbreak of H1N1 virus. The announcement was made at the end of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade meeting in Hangzhou, China, which was attended by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke. The ban on pork from Iowa and 37 other states was announced by China on May 8, due to concerns ...

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  For those who wondered how many more road construction jobs the federal stimulus bill added in Iowa, the answer appears to lie upwards of 1,000. Construction work on Iowa’s highways last summer created more than 30 percent more jobs than usual due to federal stimulus funds, the Iowa Department of Transportation reported Wednesday. Projects overseen by the Iowa Department of Transportation employed 5,268 during the last full week in July, DOT Director Nancy Richardson said, up 31.5 percent from the 4,005 employed ...

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Deere & Company will recall 452 employees at its Ottumwa Works beginning Nov. 30 to begin production of 2010 models. The 452 workers are the vast majority of those laid off earlier this year due to slumping demand cause by the economic downturn. All of the 452 are expected to be back to work before the plant’s annual holiday shutdown on Dec. 23. Seventy-eight employees will remain on layoffs until market conditions improve enough to require more production, company spokesman Ken ...

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When executives of two regional airports heard they would have to fork over $50 a day to park their car at the host hotel for an airline conference in Chicago, they collaborated on a novel alternative. Dan Mann, director of The Eastern Iowa Airport; Pam Hinman, airport marketing director, and Bruce Carter, director of aviation at the Quad Cities International Airport in Moline, Ill., carpooled to the Amtrak station in Princeton, Ill. The three executives took the train into the Windy City ...

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As more air travelers take their work with them, airports around the world are trying to meet their needs with access to power and high-speed Internet. The Cedar Rapids Airport Commission took note recently when it approved new seating as part of the "B" concourse upgrade at The Eastern Iowa Airport. Many of the seats are equipped with power outlets to complement the free WiFi Internet access already provided for travelers. But as author Daniel Pink found out recently when he visited ...

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