Colfax fresh produce distributor Foster USA has committed to opening a 165,000-square-foot facility on Lowery Street in Winston-Salem where it has pledged to create 165 jobs and relocate 140 jobs. The company projects beginning construction of its new ripening rooms in December, with the new facility fully online in March.

A cybersecurity attack has caused confusion in Apex where residents are receiving utility bills that have doubled and, in some cases, tripled their normal bills. The cyberattack took utility billing and building permit services offline temporarily. According to the town's website, it was unable to create an accurate bill for some customers in July and August.

As new amenity-rich Class A buildings hit the market, rents continue to be slashed across the Triangle. In some markets, the drop is almost in the double digits, data shows. The median rent for one-bedroom apartments (the mid-point where half cost less and half cost more) stood at $1,260 in August, according to Zumper’s latest report.

Edgecombe County has the third-highest unemployment rate in the state and a declining population, but community leaders hope a new manufacturer will help reverse its economic woes. Natron Energy, an international industrial battery manufacturer, plans to bring more than 1,000 jobs and an investment of $1.4 billion with a “gigafactory” midway between Rocky Mount and Tarboro.

Finding enough bus drivers to operate all necessary routes has become a common issue for school systems across North Carolina. Over the past several years the North Carolina General Assembly has mandated increases for hourly staff in the public education system, with those employees now starting out at $15 an hour.

The developers of a proposed Life Sciences Center to be constructed in downtown Chapel Hill recently lost a series of appeals with the Orange County Board of Equalization to reduce the tax values of a collection of six parcels along West Franklin and West Rosemary Streets by approximately 12%. Completion is expected sometime in 2026.

In addition to coaching duties at N.C. Central University, LeVelle Moton has been working for several years to bring affordable housing to the fast-changing Southeast Raleigh neighborhood where he grew up poor. He speaks candidly about the gentrification that’s taken hold in his old neighborhood and threatens to erase its identity as a historically Black community.

Asheville-based MAHEC – Mountain Area Health Education Center – has four 350-square-foot homes in Sylva. The units are arranged in a cluster just outside downtown, offering a view of the mountains. Each of the homes will host a student of medicine, pharmacy, behavioral health or another health science discipline, generally for a two-to-four-week rotation in the Sylva area.