PARIS - Carrefour, the European answer to Wal-Mart and the world’s second-largest retailer, is in play.
It is a classic story, involving generational tensions, a senior executive summarily dismissed and pressure from powerful investors hunting for profit. But it is also a very French story because the value of the treasure at the tale’s core — [...]

Live and own right here. Walk anywhere you need to be. Look out on Tampa’s skyline every night from your downtown home.
It’s a pitch one can see all over downtown on banners for SkyPoint, Element and other burgeoning developments.
It’s a pitch that has young professionals finally buying that Tampa can provide an upscale, urban lifestyle.
It’s [...]

ST. PETERSBURG - After years of waiting, residents along the west end of Central Avenue got their wish when a developer bought the Crystal Bay Hotel.
Norman Kerr, who has rehabbed properties in South Beach, Minneapolis, Austin and Dallas, bought the 90-year-old hotel in January and has already begun a multimillion-dollar repair that will include an [...]

Nina R. Eldred, former vice president and assistant general counsel for Marriott International and The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, has joined Holland & Knight’s Global Hospitality and Resort Team as a senior counsel in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
Eldred is recognized as one of the leading hospitality lawyers representing hotel owners and operators in the acquisition, [...]

Two plans to turn vacant lots in the north end of downtown Elmhurst into a trendy condominium and retail center came under City Council scrutiny this week, with members mostly criticizing their design and financing.
Mayor Thomas Marcucci said Monday that he was looking for something that appealed to the higher-end condo market.
“This is [...]

Doral Golf Resort & Spa, a Marriott Resort, rings in 2007 with the debut of the 60,000-square-foot Legends Ballroom. The new $25 million facility features a 24,000-square-foot ballroom with 22-foot ceilings and 27,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor pre-function space. Accommodating up to 2,000 attendees, the Legends Ballroom is the ideal location for corporate [...]

Local attorney and developer Norman S. Drubner this week submitted plans for a 431-condominium complex on a 132-acre property he owns off Park Road next to the Western Hills Golf Course.
Plans call for 351 townhouse-style condominiums. The rest would be grouped flats. Drubner described his plans as upscale, but was unable to offer prices for [...]

Australian golf champion Greg Norman is the designer behind the project’s PGA-standard course – his first course in South Australia and his ninth in Australia.
The planned Yorke Peninsula development comprises an 18-hole golf course, a 120-room resort, 1650 residential allotments and commercial and recreational precincts.
Work is expected to begin in the second half of the [...]

A ruling forcing an insurer to pay millions of dollars to a Mississippi couple whose home was damaged by Hurricane Katrina didn’t appear to spook investors this week.
Stocks of publicly traded property insurers that denied claims from damage caused by Hurricane Katrina dipped very mildly after the court decision Thursday afternoon. By midday Friday, most [...]

Ernie Els and Adam Scott will headline the Johnnie Walker Classic after the event was confirmed for the Thai resort island of Phuket.
Also lined up for the 1.25 million dollar event are Retief Goosen and Paul Casey, meaning three of world’s top 10 will start the tournament at the Blue Canyon Country Club from [...]

Has condo-mania hit North Oakland?
Developers seem to have caught on to the fact neighborhoods like Temescal are ripe for building market-rate condominiums. They have bought lots, shuttled through the city’s planning process and erected five to six-story complexes that tower over existing nearby structures.
“It’s gentrified a certain amount here,” Temescal resident Robert Temple said. “I [...]

Tens of thousands of first-time homebuyers in Scotland are increasingly finding themselves on the horns of a dilemma: should they borrow up to the hilt to secure the property of their dreams or forsake, perhaps for years, the chance of owning their own homes?
Each month that passes, the problem becomes ever more acute. According to [...]