Crop-damage loans OK'd in 12 counties
Farmers in 12 Arkansas counties will be eligible for low-interest emergency loans for crop damage and losses caused by heavy rains, flooding and high winds since April 1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced.
The counties declared as natural disaster areas are Carroll, Clay, Craighead, Independence, Jackson, Lawrence, Lincoln, Madison, Prairie, Randolph, White and Woodruff.
Farmers in those counties have eight months to apply to the USDA's Farm Service Agency for loans to help cover part of actual losses.
Farmers in extreme northeast Arkansas -- Craighead, Lawrence and Randolph counties -- were hit by heavy rains and floods right at planting time this spring and again, in the fall, just as harvest was to begin.
-- Stephen Steed
State: Hotel project is tax-credit eligible
CFK Hospitality is eligible for tax credits for its convention center and hotel project in Jonesboro, the company was notified in a letter from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.
Eligibility does not guarantee the developers will receive tax credits, however. CFK Hospitality's 78,000-square-foot project will be reviewed by the Revenue Division of the state Department of Finance and Administration. Plans call for a 147-room Hyatt Place hotel attached to the convention center.
In order to qualify for state sales tax and income tax credits under the Arkansas Tourism Development Act, developers must, among other factors, operate hotels connected to convention centers of at least 75,000 square feet and develop marketing plans aimed at drawing 25 percent of their visitors from out of state. CFK Hospitality announced last month that it would more than double the proposed size of the facility to qualify for the tax credits.
A second convention center project is also in the works on the campus of Arkansas State University-Jonesboro. O'Reilly Hospitality of Springfield, Mo., plans to open a $45 million, 45,000-square-foot convention center with a 202-room Embassy Suites hotel.
-- Chris Bahn
14 stocks advance as index gains 4.21
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, climbed 4.21 to 339.19 Friday.
Fourteen stocks advanced, three declined and one was unchanged.
America's Car-Mart rose 3.6 percent on low volume.
Windstream lost 2.6 percent in heavy trading.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.
Business on 10/01/2016