ALABAMA BUSINESS NEWS

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U.S. sales of the Alabama-built Hyundai Sonata sedan plummeted in December, falling 74 percent from a year ago to 6,593, the Korean automaker said today.

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All three vehicles built at the Mercedes-Benz factory in Vance posted steep declines in December sales, the German automaker said today.

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U.S. sales of Honda's Alabama-built vehicles dropped dramatically last month in what is expected to be another brutal month for U.S. car sales.

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Former Zoe's Kitchen CEO John Cassimus has been named entrepreneur-in-residence at Samford University's Brock School of Business.

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WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama is heading to Capitol Hill to push for quick action on a broad economic stimulus package that congressional leaders are saying won't be ready until mid-February at the earliest -- almost a month later than the president-elect wanted.

Obama planned to meet Monday with House and Senate Democratic leaders and with a bipartisan group of key lawmakers. He had hoped to have Congress enact the recovery plan in time for him to sign his when he takes office Jan. 20. But even his spokesman, Robert Gibbs, conceded Sunday night that was "very, very unlikely."

"We don't anticipate that Congress will have passed, both houses, an economic recovery agreement by the time the inauguration takes place," Gibbs said.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said Sunday he wants the House to approve the plan by the end of the month, sending it to the Senate in time for action before Congress leaves on its mid-February break.

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The chief organizer of a push to redevelop the area around the Alabama Theatre hopes new activity - including an expanded Cafe Dupont and a planned restaurant - will help rejuvenate a downtown Birmingham district with a vivid past but an unclear future.

Joey McClure, owner of Joseph McClure Commercial Real Estate, has put together a Web site for the district that runs along Third Avenue North and 20th Street, and is actively marketing nearly two dozen vacant properties for new uses. The area is often called the Theater District even though it features several restaurants.

"I'm working with two or three restaurants and one bar right now that would really add to what we have started here," McClure said.

Even as McClure casts a hopeful eye on the future, he knows it is hard to ignore the vacant buildings that dot the district, where two art galleries and a restaurant recently closed. There is much work to do, and the worst economic downturn in decades won't make it any easier.

Ornate properties like the former SouthTrust building between First and Second Avenues along 20th Street or the Iron Age Building at 212 20th Street seem to beg for new life, McClure said. Vacant spaces like the former Licther's Furniture and Jaymark Jewelry buildings greet patrons as they depart the Alabama Theatre, not the restaurants or coffee shops envisioned by McClure.

McClure believes the former Woolworth's building on the corner of 19th and Third is a perfect spot for a large restaurant or another high-profile tenant. But it's hard for him to knock a business, the California Fashion Mall, that's operating amid all the vacancies.

Developing the Theater District was among the recommendations from an outside consultant who helped Birmingham prepare a downtown master plan a few years ago. The district's hot spots include the renovated Alabama, McWane Center with its IMAX theater, the Carver Theater and the Red Mountain Theatre Co.

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Hoover Police this morning identified the victim of a fatal accident that occurred Friday on Old Montgomery Highway at Riverchase Drive.
William Bentley, 79, of Pelham was transported to UAB Trauma Center shortly after the accident that occurred at 12:35 p.m. Bentley died later Friday afternoon of injuries he suffered in the crash.
Bentley's wife was taken to UAB for non-life threatening injuries, police said. The driver of the second vehicle did not require medical attention, according to police. The accident remains under investigation.
Bentley was driving an automobile, and the other vehicle was a truck.

Samford University has started offering a new degree in social entrepreneurship, a program designed to equip students aiming for careers in public administration or leading nonprofit agencies and businesses supporting social causes.

The goal is to prepare future nonprofit, corporate, and government leaders with the skills essential to helping Alabama leaders deal with social needs such as fighting poverty, improving the environment and community development, said Jeremy Thornton, an assistant economics professor in the Brock School of Business and social entrepreneurship program coordinator.

The curriculum will focus on three areas - theory, practice and ethics - and work closely with the Brock School of Business' Frances Marlin Mann Center for Ethics and Leadership, started last year through a gift from Lexmark Inc. Chairman Marvin L. Mann and named for his late wife.

"We are responding to a need from a lot of our students desiring to go into the nonprofit sector or interested in working at for-profit companies that have a social component," Thornton said. "Those type of careers require different skills from regular business courses."

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