Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • B4

4B hu rs da ul 25, 20 13 ampa ay imes Cruise oper ators agr ee to full disclose alleg ed criminal acti vi ty on ships. 1 A BY SUSAN THURS TO Times Staf Writer AMP A ine esign, th oldest remaining business a Channelside Bay Plaza, is closing after nearly 12 years. eidi Nietzel, who owns the wine tore with her husband, Scot said sales ha ve dropped so significantly that it no longer makes sense to st ay open. ve had a ys when not one cu tomer walked through the door she said. he Nietzels had hoped to stick it out until plans emerged to revitalize the center but, after a few painfully slow weeks, the decided they couldn wait.

Any i mprovements would take to long The retail and entertainment center has struggled since or mer owner Ashk enazy Acquisition Corp. defaulted on the mortgage, put ting the property back into the hands of an I rish bank. he Ta mpa Po rt Author- it which owns the land under the cente wants a new buyer to take it over but, so far hasn been able to reach a deal with anyone. Ho es for the center flared when ampa Bay Lightning owner Je ff Vinik talked about buying it but quickly disappeared when those plans collapsed. Ma ny locals assumed the entire place was closed, and business ot ven slowe r.

Wine Design took a major hit when Channelside Cinemas closed last fall. A a result, the wine store cu back its hours to reduce costs, Nie tzel said. But it wasn enough. When a proposal from developers Liberty han nelside to buy the retail complex fell through, the Nietzels knew it was time to go think it ay too long to wait it out she said, noting Wine shop to close as plaza struggles ee WINE 5B BY SUSAN THURS TO Times Staf Writer AMP A Citing slow business, Busch Gardens is tempo- arily closing its popular Crown Colony and Garden Gate restaurants, a sign that the theme park could be feeling the competition of major new at tractions at other Florida theme parks. Busch Gardens of ficials confirmed the closures ednes- day but didn give an exact closing date.

They also didn specif how long the restaurants would be closed but said they would reopen at a a ter date. routinely adjust our park experience based on guest beha vior specific a tt rac tion pen- et ration and seasonal considerations, park spokesman Tr av is Cla ytor said in an e-mail. Dennis Speigel, president of I nternational heme ark Services in Cincinnati, said regional theme parks nationwide are seeing flat at tendance this summe partly because of idespread rain and heat. Orlando parks, howeve are doing well thanks to new at tractions such as Sea- Wo Antarctica: Empire of the enguin and niversal Orlando Tr ansformers 3D ride. is af fecting Ta mp a this year because all the big players ha ve launched big products, he said.

think some of the locals might ha ve shifted to Orlando. losing wo ig restaurants, including the wo-stor white Crown Colony with table ser vice and a pub, is a trong indicator that the park wants to reduce xpenses, Speigel said. The closures had been rumored for a while and are par of larger budget uts planned for the park and its sister property in Williamsburg Va said Bill Androckitis, a Busch Gardens blogger for BGTfans.com. don xpect the park to keep things open that aren profitable, but to close their only sit- down restaurant i disappointing and cause for oncern, he The temporary closures come as the Orlando riv als are siphoning off patrons Busch to shut 2 restaurants ee BUSCH GARDEN 5 hat do Bayfront ospital owner SeaW orld orcas, Bill mortgage irm and Bristol-M yers Squibb xpan- sion here ha ve in common? They are all under rising economic pressures brought on by la wsuits, activists, a lending crunch and rising costs. And they all bear watching 4.

ver since ealth an- agement A ssociates in aples bought St. Pe tersburg ay front edical Center this pas spring the publicly traded hospital chain has bat tled takeover rumors, a hedg fund investor push for a ne board and now a la wsuit from a pension fund investor As reported by Bloomberg Ne ws, the police pension fund in the Broward Count town of Da vie alleges HM urrent board is abusing its power by tr ying to arm investors into rejecting a bid to replace HM board. he la wsuit claims HMA loans include provisions that accelerate debt payments if the board of directors is removed an vent that the urrent board warns could endanger HMA future. It the latest legal swordplay between HMA and hedg fund Glenview Capital an- agement push for new HMA directors. ow comes a recent CNBC report suggesting talk of an HMA takeover may be subsiding All of this corporate theater by Bayfront ew owner must be unset tling to a St.

Pe te hospital that agreed to be purchased for the sake of bet ter inancial sec urit y. 3. eeks after the ederal Tr ade Commission levied a record ine on Bill Mo tgage In vestors Corp. for violating telemarketing not rules, the compan said it will lay of 380 employees. Edwards blames rising interest rates and a dysfunctional secondar mortgag market for a drop in business.

Some help may be on the wa y. Regulators may ease a proposal that banks eep part of the mortgage sec uri- ties they sell to investors. If that occ urs, it would be (as the Wa ll Street ournal a ys) a U-turn for regulators enforcing the 2010 Dodd- Fr ank inancial overhaul la w. But is it enough 2. Busch Gardens does not ha ve killer whales.

But that does not ease an concern over the new doc u- mentar ilm Blackfish which chronicles what may ha ve caused the 12,000 -pound orca Tilikum to kill a SeaW orld trainer in 2010 and wo other people in the 1990 s. No longer owned by Anheuser-Busch, Busch Gardens is part of the theme park spinof SeaW orld Entertainment whose shares ha ve risen since oing public this spring Will Blackfish hurt the tock? One critic calls it a ting in its indictment of Sea- Wo ld. It opens in os Angeles and Ne ork on rida y. 1. On the heels of las blockbuster expansion announced for illsborough Count Bristol-M yers Squibb wasted no time this week announcing it will lay of 200 Ne ersey workers.

Lured by Florida incentives, the company will open a marketing technolog and inance opera tion in early 20 14 in a yet-to- be-specified center he 200 jobs lost in Ne ersey will become local hires here. he drugmaker cited Ne erse high costs for the shift. ampa will ut labor and location expenses, also reducing demand on our facilities in Ne erse y. It a similar message we heard recently when Ne Je r- se He tz said it moving its HQ to ee Count y. Robert rigaux can be eached at our ey rms ace economic pr es sur es RO BE RT TRI GA UX On Busines iStockphoto.com Associated Pres NEW ORK It seems that not ven Beyonce or ne lower-calorie options an persuade Americans to drink more soda.

Coca- Cola epsiCo and Dr epper Snapple Group all sold less soda in the second quarter i Nor th America, dashing hopes for the moment tha splashy new marketing and dif ferent sweetener mixes could ge drinkers back. Coca- Cola said it sold 4 percent less soda in No rth America, while epsiCo simply said that its decline for the region was in the mid-single digits. Dr ep- per sold 3 percent less of its izzy drinks. Coca- Cola blamed the sluggish sales on a cold, wet spring but the declines continue a yearslong trend. According to the industr tracker Beverage Digest, per capita soda consumption in the nites States has been slipping steadily since 1998 amid concerns that sugar drinks fuel weight gain.

Another problem is that people now ha ve so man more choices when it comes to drinks. An endless array of bot tled waters, teas of many colors, ven energ shots and drinks are vying for the at tention of the thirsty with tore coolers ge ting Even new ad campaigns and weetener mixes fall flat for Coca-Cola, epsiCo and others popping? Not U.S. soda sales Pe psi ts up Despite a modest percent decline in North American soft drink volume, epsiCo reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit of $2.01 billion on We nesday, up from $1.49 billion a year earlier. The company a id its mixed portf olio played a role, underscoring its resistance to splitting up its drinks and snacks businesses. Besides soft drinks, the company makes Gatorade, ropicana, Quaker and Frito-Lay chips.

ee SO DA 5B Coca-Cola said it sold 4 er- ent ss soda in North America i the second quarter Pe psiCo said its decline fo the region was in the id-singl digits Dr epper sold 3 percent less of its fizzy drinks. NO RT AMERICA till contributed the bulk of ord otor Co. second-quarter et income, which grew 18.5 percent to $1.23 billion, but ord A sian operations earned a record quarterly profit of $11 7 illion in the period, and 20 percent of ord sales came from the region. Th at from 11 percent ive years ago. Sales also grew in South America, where second-quarter profit jumped to $151 illion from $5 million a year ago.

ord ven narrowed its losses in recession-wear Europe. ord handily beat all earnings and revenue forecasts a nd raised its full- year profit guidance. AMERICAN snapped up ew homes in une at the fastest pace since Ma 2008, a sign the housing recover is trength- ening Sales of newly built homes rose 8. 3 percent last onth to a seasonally adjusted annual rate 497 ,000, the Comm erce Department said ednesda y. hile sales are till below the 700,000 pace consistent ith healthy arkets, they ha ve risen 38 percent in the past 12 onths.

Th at the biggest annual gain since anuar 1992. THE BOTTOM LINE: Google to tar selling $35 gadget dubbed Chromecas tha will plug into high-definition TVs, st eam video from Netflix Yo uT ube and other sources fiscal third-quarter profit came in at $1.23 billion, reversing loss of $1.84 billion in year-earlier period FA tock is flying high after the world biggest social network posted higher revenue from mobile ads and delivered a healthy second-quarter profit that reversed a loss a year earlier acebook said ednesday that it earned $333 million, reversing a loss of $157 illion a year ago. he compan tock jumped $4. 93, or 18.6 percent, to $31. 44 in xtended trading after closing at $26.51.

revenue grew 53 percent to $1.81 billion while mobile revenue was $655.6 million, or 41 percent of the quarter total ad revenue of $1.6 billion. $1. 09B SECOND-QUAR TER NET INCOME FOR BOEING, up 13 percent from a year earlier, as it ramped up eliveries of commercial planes like its 73 7 and its 777, even as the new 78 7 continues to have problems TW OF HE TOP RA MAKERS are coming together in the biggest velopment in the $11.5 billion underwear industr in years. anesbrands, which makes the on- derbra, has agreed to buy bra and under wear ompany aiden- form Brands for about $54 7 million. he deal would add brands like aidenform, Flexees and Self Expressions to the anes- brand roster that includes Playtex, Bali, hampion and its namesake Ha es.

Be yo nd ampa ay.