The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 47

The Orlando Sentinel Week of June 18-24 CFB REPORT Thought, talk and speculation I- 25.1975: ISW: First fe color I li 'Of p-i --J 1958: Channel 9 Dedicates 1.608-foot transmitting 1 broadcast MUIJrl 3. signs on. mm tower. -1 l5j rr7 fcs; July 16. 1 ARM V- 4 13b; 1984: SFN Companies Inc.

buys WFTV for Captures largest share of Orlando market's 4 $125 million audience Remember when the Orange County School Board sold the old Orange County Vocational-Technical School at 325 N. Palmetto Ave. to Mike Daspin and Buddy Freltag? It was just three years ago, and the price was $870,000 about $12 per square foot. Daspin and Freitag sold it in 1983 for $1.55 million, or $23 per square foot. Now the 1.5-acre site is on the market again.

The Latin American owners want $35 per square foot. That comes to a tidy $2.42 million. Interestingly, the property abuts the 1.25-acre site that is the headquarters for George Stuart Inc. the office supply firm which is also up for sale. The two properties make up a city block that is situated perfectly for a hotel, condominium or office building.

Sax Thrift Avenue, a resale shop in Longwood's Springs Plaza whose sales hit $300,000 last year, will have to change its name. Saks Fifth Avenue, whose annual sales exceed $500 million, feels threatened. Founded by Andrew Saks in Washington, D.C., in 1867, Saks feels that the Sax Thrift Avenue name is a takeoff on its own retail mark and is an attempt to "confuse, mislead and deceive the purchasing public." Sax Thrift Avenue, founded in 1980 by Lisa Hendy, 26, says that TTiTTT, li inn nui njil rfftm i. 2-- -rri 1 VVrAV A MIKE WHIOHT 'StNTINtL WF The sale to SFN will make millionaires of many investors Lisa's 1 By Suzy Hagstrom OF THE SENTINEL STAFF wasn the intent. "Bargain hunters have a great sense of humor," says Hendy.

"And that's all it was a sense of humor." But Saks sued, and Hendy gave in. The name will be changed to Lisa's Thrift Avenue. Then there was the matter of $10,000 that Saks wanted company SFN will buy June 27 for $116 million. Western's holdings include three radio stations in Montana and television stations in Augusta and Columbus, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Titles and responsibilities of some WFTV officials will change because of the broadcast head quarters, according to Walter Windsor, the station's general manager.

Windsor will become WFTV's president after the sale. While SFN does not plan to establish publishing operations in Orlando, John Purcell, the company's chairman, does not rule out that possibility. "1 think Harcourt Brace already beat us to the The pending sale of WFTV-Channel 9 in Orlando for $125 million reflects Central Florida's explosive growth as a television market. Many of the station's 67 individual owners will become millionaires July 16, the scheduled date for the sale. Future owner SFN Companies Inc.

of Glenview, 111., will use WFTV as the cornerstone for building a profitable new business. After buying the station, SFN, the nation's largest publisher of school textbooks, will establish a broadcast headquarters in Orlando. The headquarters also will serve Western Broadcasting a SARAH KEYSSENTINEL Please see COVER STORY, 12 TOPICS 7 'l-' to A i A Hendy to pay to cover its legal fees. Hendy offered $1,000 to settle up. Saks accepted.

A footnote to Thrift Avenue: Saks told The Orlando Sentinel a year ago that Central Florida just didn't have the demographics to support a Saks Fifth Avenue store, but they may be taking a second look. In a deposition for the Saks vs. Sax case, vice president and marketing director Paul Lablang said, "As Saks has already opened three stores in the Florida market and as Orlando is the center of a rapidly growing region, it is conceivable that we might wish to locate a Saks Fifth Avenue retail store in the Orlando area at some time in the future." Even the U.S. Treasury can't print more land especially near the ocean. That's why buyers may come from faraway places on June 30 when 16 parcels of a 70-acre oceanfront tract will be sold at public auction in the city of Ponce Inlet just south of Daytona Beach.

The largest undeveloped tract in the area, the property has been held in a trust for many years and now the city has approved Please see CFB REPORT, 2 Departments Bank rates 32 Banking Business on TV 39 Calendar 30 Conventions 38 Florida stocks 35 Indicators 37 Insider trading 34 Personal finance 26 Progressions 40 Real estate 6 Small Business 22 Technology 17 Strategies Texas developers are finding greener pastures in Florida Tourism International Drive is the last lane for franchises. I I Agriculture A new computer syslem could revolutionize vegetable sales. I Retailing Some Florida retailers profit in national mail-order boom. I Profile Bobby McKown isn't well-known, but he's in the citrus limelight. 25.