PET ADOPTION EVENT
SPARTANS ROLL
The Southwestern men’s basketball team cruised to a 9469 win over Southern Maryland in Tuesday’s first-round game at the NJCAA Division II National Tournament. For more on the Spartans, see SPORTS, page 7A. >>
Tractor Supply Company in Creston is holding a pet adoption event from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. For more information on the event, see BUSINESS/FARM, page 5A. >>
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Sears has Council approves ‘substantial housing feasibility study doubt’ about its future
CITY COUNCIL
CNA photo by SCOTT VICKER
Pictured is the Lincoln School building. Completion of a housing feasibility study could entice a developer to turn the former school building into housing.
By SCOTT VICKER
CNA managing editor svicker@crestonnews.com
A housing feasibility study in Creston is one step closer to being completed after the Creston City Council unanimously approved contributing $3,000 toward paying for the study at Tuesday’s meeting. Union County Development Association Executive Director Wayne Pantini presented the council with a quote of $12,500 from JEO Consulting Group to conduct a housing feasibility study for Creston. The need for this study arose as Pantini contacted several developers to look at building apartments in
Creston. Pantini said several of those developers asked if he had a housing study done and what information he could send them. “It’s (apartment housing) something that’s a huge demand for the area,” Pantini said. “We can pull a lot of stuff from the Census Bureau and some other res o u r c e s Pantini and provide that to them, but they really want to see a little bit more detailed information.” Completing the housing feasibility study could kick-
start solving a long-burning issue in Creston – what to do with the Lincoln School building. “Do you see this study as being helpful like in the case of the Lincoln School?” a s k e d Ward 2 Madison Councilman Rich Madison. “It would be good to get that one going.” “I do, actually. I know Mike (Taylor) has talked with some folks and I have too, but we can’t really show them concrete demand,” Pantini said. “We
have a lot of anecdotal stuff we can tell them from hearsay, but we don’t really have anything that’s valid. It would be a tool we could use to go out and try to get a developer for that school.”
The study Pantini contacted Southern Iowa Council of Governments (SICOG) about conducting the study, but SICOG recommended he go elsewhere in order to get more detailed information about the demand for housing. Maxfield Research, based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, quoted a price of $25-30,000 for its study. But, Pantini said, JEO CITY | 10A
NEW YORK (AP) — Sears, once the monolith of American retail, says that there is “substantial doubt” that it will be able to keep its doors open. Company shares, which hit an all-time low last month, tumbled more than 12 percent Wednesday. Sears has been a member of the retail dead pool for years, but until this week the company had not openly acknowledged its tenuous existence, said Ken Perkins, who heads the research firm Retail Metrics LLC. Sears has long maintained that by balancing the sale of key assets while at the same time enticing customers with loyalty programs, it would eventually turn the corner. Yet industry analysts have placed the staggering sums of money that Sears is losing beside the limited number of assets it has left to sell, and concluded that the storied retailer may have reached the point of no return. The company has lost $10.4 billion since 2011, the last year that it made a profit. Excluding charges that can be listed as one-time events, the loss is $4.57 billion, Perkins says, but how the losses are stacked no longer seem to matter. “They’re past the tipping point,” Perkins said. “This is a symbolic acknowledgement of the end of Sears of what we know it to be.” For Sears to survive, Perkins believes it would need to do so as a company running maybe 200 stores. It
now operates 1,430, a figure that has been vastly reduced in recent years. As for Kmart, which Sears also owns, Perkins does not see much of a future. Millions of dollars have been funneled through the hedge fund of Chairman and CEO Edward Lampert to keep Sears afloat but with sales fading, it is burning through cash. Lampert combined Sears and Kmart in 2005, about two years after he helped bring Kmart out of bankruptcy According to a regulatory filing late Tuesday, Sears Holdings Corp. lost more than $2 billion last year. Adjusted for one-time charges, its loss was $887 million. Sears has been selling assets, most recently its Craftsman tool brand. But it says its pension agreements may prevent the spin-off of more businesses, potentially leading to a shortfall in funding. “Our historical operating results indicate substantial doubt exists related to the company’s ability to continue as a going concern,” Sears said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Sears, which employs 140,000 people, announced a major restructuring plan in February with hopes of cutting costs by $1 billion through the sale of more stores, jobs cuts and brand asset sales. And it’s reconfiguring its debts to give itself more breathing room. SEARS | 10A
GOP leaders boost pressure as health bill crunch time nears WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and House leaders revved up pressure Wednesday on balky conservatives and other Republican lawmakers as crunch time approaches on the party’s health care overhaul bill, a drive GOP leaders concede they can’t afford to lose. A day before the House planned votes on the measure, Trump and top Republicans continued hunting support for what would be a significant achievement for his young presidency. But underscoring the bill’s uncertain fate, a senior admin-
istration official said that 20 to 25 House Republicans remained opposed or undecided. That’s a grave figure since united Democratic opposition means the measure crashes if 22 GOP lawmakers vote “no.” “Big day for health care. Working hard!” Trump tweeted Wednesday. On Tuesday, Trump told House Republicans at a private meeting at the Capitol that “a loss is not acceptable, folks.” He warned they’d face widespread defeats in next year’s elections and
CNA photo by BAILEY POOLMAN
Creative: Sarah Brown with Quilts and Other Notions lays out brightly colored fabric squares to sample various layouts for a quilt in the works today at Quilts and Other Notions on West Montgomery Street.
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