Jun. 21--The West Irving Die Casting property in MidAmerica Airpark has been sold.

John Howard, a real estate agent with Alliance Marketing LLC, said an area investor bought the 112,756-square-foot plant and its 10 acres last week.

Howard said the buyer isn't ready to identify himself or talk about his plans for the plant.

The sale price wasn't disclosed, but the asking price was $3.9 million.

The 10-year-old plant closed at the end of December.

-- The Owensboro Metropolitan Planning Commission issued a permit last week for a foundation for a new office building at 2645 Frederica St.

That's the property in front of One Park Place.

Planning commission records show it will be a new Farm Bureau Insurance office.

-- The Jimmy John's chain of gourmet sandwich shops is looking for a franchisee in the Owensboro area.

The 26-year-old chain says it has 690 stores today.

If you're interested, check the Web site -- www.jimmyjohns.com.

-- Owensboro-based Boardwalk Pipeline Partners ranked 14th on the Lane Report's 2009 list of the largest publicly held corporations whose headquarters are in Kentucky.

The Lexington business magazine said Boardwalk had $784.8 million in revenue last year, putting it just behind Texas Roadhouse at $880.5 million.

Humana Inc., with $28.9 billion in revenue, is the state's largest corporation, the magazine said.

-- The 2009 Zagat Fast-Food Survey ranked Panera Bread first in the fast-food large-chains category; Subway, first in mega-chains; and Starbucks, first in refreshment chains.

-- In 1968, when General Electric had 6,600 employees in Owensboro -- the largest employer in the county's history -- Daviess County listed 10,112 total manufacturing jobs.

So, how many do we have four decades later?

Nick Brake, president of the Greater Owensboro Economic Development Corp., says the latest American Community Survey found 10,427 manufacturing jobs here in 2007.

That was, of course, before the layoffs of the past year.

-- The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis said last week that personal income in the U.S. continued to decline in the first quarter of 2009 -- falling 0.5 percent.

The report said 37 states saw a drop in personal income during the quarter.

But Kentucky's personal income grew by 0.1 percent in both the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of this year -- after dropping 0.4 percent in the third quarter of last year.

That means we're still down 0.2 percent from a year ago.

-- Dollar General Corp. is doing well during the recession. The company, which sells most of its merchandise for $10 or less, said recently that its sales in the first quarter jumped 15.7 percent to $2.78 billion.

Keith Lawrence, 691-7301, klawrence@messenger-inquirer.com

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