Business briefs, May 9

Published May 9, 2007 at midnight

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NATIONAL

Panel votes to raise fuel efficiency levels

A U.S. Senate committee approved a plan Tuesday to increase fuel efficiency standards to an average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee passed the measure on a voice vote. It would raise the nationwide fleet fuel economy average by about 40 percent compared with the current levels of 25 mpg and increase standards by 4 percent a year from 2020 through 2030.

TRANS FATS GONE Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, said it stopped using oil with trans fatty acids to prepare foods at its delicatessens.

Wal-Mart started removing the oils, thought to contribute to heart disease, in January, the Bentonville, Ark.-based company said Tuesday. Wal-Mart operates delis in its 2,285 supercenters and 116 neighborhood markets in the U.S.

CASINO REVENUE UP Gambling revenues at U.S. commercial casinos rose 6.8 percent to a record $32.4 billion in 2006, according to a survey released Tuesday by the American Gaming Association.

The survey collected data from state regulatory agencies on 460 commercial casinos in 11 states.

The casinos employed 366,197 people, up 3.2 percent from a year earlier, and contributed $5.2 billion in gambling taxes to state and local governments, up 5.5 percent from a year earlier.

GETTING GREENER General Motors Corp. on Tuesday became the first automaker to join a business coalition dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The nation's biggest automaker joined the U.S. Climate Action Partnership with 10 other newcomers, including Dow Chemical Co. and PepsiCo Inc.

LOCAL

SmartCare plans expansion in Atlanta

Greenwood Village-based SmartCare Family Medical Centers, an operator of retail-based, walk-in medical clinics, will open SmartCare Centers in some Kroger locations in Atlanta by fall.

REFINERY BACK ONLINE Operations have resumed at the Wynnewood, Okla., refinery owned by Denver-based Gary Williams Energy Corp. It shut down April 27 after lightning ignited a fire that burned for two days.

HIGH MARKS FOR HELP Qwest Communications is ranked first among local telcos in directory-assistance services for the sixth consecutive year, according to the Paisley National Directory Assistance Performance Index. Qwest also received top industry honors for directory-assistance speech recognition and call handling.

WEB SITE SET TO LAUNCH Denver consumer organization ProgressNowAction.org will launch www.InvestigateNorton.org today to seek a congressional investigation into whether former Interior Secretary Gale Norton improperly used her position to oversee Shell's bid to lease public lands in Colorado for oil shale research.

Shell official Jill Davis didn't return a call seeking comment.

NEW BURGER CAMPAIGN Golden-based Good Times Restaurants Inc. will launch a new ad campaign to promote the company's Bambino burgers, small "sliders" that sell for 75 cents apiece and aim to compete with other fast-food chains' 99 cent menu items.

A new television campaign from Denver-based Morey Evans Advertising is slated to begin Monday and also will promote a new late-night message, the company said.

ECONOMY

Home prices likely to fall more than forecast

U.S. home price declines this year are going to be steeper than earlier forecast because of the drop in subprime mortgage lending and the adoption of stricter lending standards, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.

The group revised its forecast for home prices and sales. The 2007 median price for an existing home likely will drop 1 percent to $219,800 from 2006, the Chicago-based association said in a report. The median price for new homes is projected to fall $100, to $246,400, the first decline since 1991.

"If it weren't for a favorable economic backdrop, housing would probably have a hard landing," Lawrence Yun, the group's senior economist, said in the report. "We see this as a soft landing with home sales rising gradually in the second half of the year and prices recovering a bit later."

Sales of previously owned homes, 85 percent of the market, probably will total 6.29 million this year, the group said, less than the 6.34 million it called for on April 11. New home sales probably will fall to 864,000, lower than the 904,000 in the forecast a month ago, the association said.

• U.S. retailers' sales probably fell for the first time in four years last month as an earlier Easter and the coldest April in a decade discouraged purchases of lightweight clothing, gifts and garden equipment.

Sales at stores open at least a year may post a "small decline" when retailers release April results on Thursday, the International Council of Shopping Centers and UBS Securities LLC said. Retailer sales last fell in March 2003 with a 0.2 percent drop, the group said.

THIS JUST IN...

• FirsTier bank appointed Denver banker Richard Hall Jr. as market president of its new downtown Denver location.

• Dawn Putney, founder and principal of Fort Collins-based Toolbox Creative, has been named vice president of the Colorado chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Artists, the professional association for design.

• Bank of Choice, a Colorado-based community bank, appointed Heidi Hahn as senior vice president of marketing and Rita Claar as vice president of marketing.

• The President's Volunteer Service Award was presented to 178 employees at the Lockheed Martin Denver facility for volunteering a total of 45,745 hours in their communities during the year.

• Denver businessman Richard Bell was named chief operating officer of the industrial and automotive division of London-based Tomkins PLC and chairman of Denver-based Gates Corp.

• Big Earth Publishing, headquartered in Neenah, Wis., has acquired Englewood-based Westcliffe Publishers. The publishing company will continue to operate in Colorado.

• Patten, MacPhee & Associates named Gary M. Schwartz as a principal in the firm.

• Denver-based D.H. Ruggles & Associates added Andrea Lawrence Wood as director of the interior design division and Sara Westra as senior interior designer.

• Avatar International honored Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette with its Exemplary Service Overall, Best Performer 2006 Award for outstanding patient service.

• Frontier Airlines has hired Gerry Coady as its vice president and chief information officer. He will be responsible for Frontier's information technology department.

• Arapahoe County-based Archstone-Smith promoted Matthew T. Smith to senior vice president.

• Lea Ann Fowler, a shareholder in Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck's real estate group, was appointed to the Parkinson Association of the Rockies board of directors.

• Powderhorn Resort, located in western Colorado, was recognized by the National Ski Areas Association for its innovative and successful mobile marketing program from the 2006-07 winter season.

Rocky staff and wire reports

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