State legislators who represent New Hanover County shared their views on the state budget, the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge and more topics of concern to Wilmington-area residents during Thursday's WilmingtonBiz Talk. The $27.9 billion state budget was signed into law by Gov. Roy Cooper in July. Rep. Deb Butler, a Democrat, and Republican Rep. Ted Davis, along wit ...

This November, New Hanover County voters will see a question about transportation funding on their ballots. They’ll weigh in on a proposed quarter-cent sales tax to raise funds for areas such as public transportation and rail realignment. If the referendum is approved, the county estimates that $144 million would be raised from goods sold in the county over the ne ...

On this week's WilmingtonBiz Talk, we check in with growing fintech company Apiture about its expansion. The Wilmington-based company, founded in 2017, formed as a joint venture between Live Oak Bank and Atlanta-based First Data Corp. (First Data later merged with Fiserv.) It provides financial institutions with a platform to support the many services they offer the ...

North Carolina, like many other states, faces a severe shortage of manufacturing workers as companies bring their operations back to the United States. The N.C. Department of Commerce estimates that the state will need nearly 500,000 more manufacturing workers by 2028 – almost 7,500 in the Wilmington area alone. Ahead of Friday's Greater Wilmington Business Jo ...

Memorial Day weekend has historically marked the unofficial start of summer tourism season for Southeastern North Carolina. But like many things, the pandemic has changed business as usual. On Thursday’s BizTalk, the head of the area’s tourism efforts talks about what’s changed for the “on-season” and previews what to expect for this sum ...

The developers of a long-discussed mixed-use project in Southport joined BizTalk this week to give an update on their plans. In 2020, Bald Head Island Limited and East West Partners proposed a nearly 400-acre, $565-million development dubbed Project Indigo. Plans call for single-family homes, apartments, townhomes, duplexes and commercial space. It would add onto the ...

A federal agency this week provisionally awarded the rights to plan two wind farms off Southeastern North Carolina’s coast to two companies that offered $315 million. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)’s auction happened Wednesday for two lease areas in the Wilmington East Wind Energy Area, totaling nearly 110,100 acres. One lease provisionally sol ...

Hurricane season officially starts June 1, and preparation is key, not only for emergency officials but for businesses and residents as well. The coast in the Wilmington area is often included in a hurricane's cone of uncertainty (probable storm track based on models) and storms have caused major damage in recent decades to communities in the Cape Fear region. Knowi ...

New Hanover County recently released a review of the county’s economic development climate. The analysis by Greenfield Development Co. is the first formal look for the county since the Garner report in 2014. To talk about what the review focused on and what county officials took away from it for future goals, Jennifer Rigby, the county’s chief strategy offic ...

Following up on last week’s WilmingtonBiz Talk with developers of the proposed Battleship Point project across from downtown Wilmington, two groups weighed in about their thoughts on developing the waterfront property. Kemp Burdette, of Cape Fear River Watch, and Travis Gilbert, of Historic Wilmington Foundation, talked about their views on the project a ...