News

BUSINESS BRIEFS: Upscale convenience, Pardee financials, radio signal

Contractors, suppliers and business leaders enjoyed a preview opening of a new Triangle Stop Monday.

By Bill Moss, Published: September 5, 2015

If there’s such a thing as an upscale convenience store, this is it.

Triangle Stop opened its 10th store on Tuesday, the most high-tech and lavishly appointed. It contains the largest Mountain River taproom of any of the chain’s locations, featuring programmable screens showing the 16 craft beers and hard ciders on tap. Regional craft breweries will rotate, said Beau Waddell, the fourth generation Reaben Oil Co. executive who introduced the Mountain River concept to the Hendersonville-based C-store chain. The store, open 24 hours a day, will have 8-10 fulltime employees. It also has a beer cave, self-service milkshake and smoothie machine and sells pizza, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, biscuits, cheese nachos and other snacks. Contractors, suppliers and business leaders enjoyed a preview opening of the 5,000-square-foot store at the south end of Asheville Regional Airport on Monday.

Pardee continues strong budget year

Strong numbers in admissions, urgent care visits and surgeries kept Pardee Hospital on solid financial ground through the first 10 months of its fiscal year, Pardee’s Board of Directors was told on Wednesday.
After an anemic first quarter, Pardee has shown growth in most of its services and strong operating margins through the calendar year. The hospital’s budget year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.
Admissions year to date through July were 6,364, 467 ahead of budget and 773 better than the same period in 2013-14, Finance Committee Chair Bill Smith reported. The total for emergency room visits, 25,961, was 1,106 ahead of budget and 975 better than the previous year. Physician visits, at 84,981, lagged behind budget by 8,993. Due mainly to Pardee’s acquisition of more physician practices, the number of doctor visits beat the previous year’s total by 10,168.
Pain clinic procedures and visits totaled 5,986, which was 1,326 better than the target and 1,720 ahead of last year. Visits to the Hendersonville and Fletcher urgent care clinics also remained strong, at 29,559, or 3,922 better than budget and 5,631 ahead of 2013-14.
The strong numbers drove Pardee to a gross profit margin of $12.38 million, $2.5 million over budget and $8.67 million better than last year. The hospital reported a net operating margin of $4.5 million, or 3.1 percent, which beat budgeted goal of 1.8 percent but trailed last year’s 10-month margin of 6.4 percent. Total net income was up 5.4 percent, ahead of budget (3 percent) but behind 2013-14, which was 7.8 percent.

New 95.3 FM signal boosts WTZQ reach

Hendersonville radio station WTZQ-AM 1600 has launched its new FM translator signal at 95.3 FM.
This is another major improvement in WTZQ’s signal in just over a year. In February the station increased the daytime AM signal from 1,000 to 5,000 watts, making it the most powerful standard broadcast commercial radio station between Greenville, S.C. and Asheville.
In recent years the Federal Communications Commission adopted rules allowing AM stations to re-broadcast their AM signals over FM translators. The ruling enables local AM radio stations to improve their nighttime signals. The FM signal covers Henderson County and parts of the surrounding counties 24 hours a day.