Construction drops, Ikea, AT&T, Weir's: Friday's Business Briefing

Your lunchtime look at D-FW business [Your lunchtime look at D-FW business] June 08,  2018 🔎 Prefer the online view? It's [here](. Follow us on Twitter [@DMNBiz](. New construction activity is down by more than a third in D-FW this year. (DMN) The Big Story Drop in D-FW construction could be timely after years of building gains The latest construction report isn't the kind of news North Texas is used to getting. So far in 2018, the volume of new construction projects is down by more than a third in the Dallas-Fort Worth area from a year ago. Starts of new nonresidential building projects plunged by more than 70 percent in May alone from year-ago levels, according to reports from Dodge Data & Analytics. [The downshift in local building activity]( comes after years of steady construction gains in North Texas. Reports that area builders are starting to pull back this year shouldn't be a surprise. -[Steve Brown]( The Latest Developer trades affordable housing to build higher [City leaders are resuming efforts]( to make similar deals a possibility for developers in some parts of Dallas. Ikea shelves Fort Worth store When it announced the Fort Worth location in February 2017, [Ikea]( said it had positioned its stores to cover the region in a triangle. West Dallas community will bring hundreds of homes [Megatel Homes](, one of North Texas' biggest builders, has finished work on the first phase of its SoHo Square project on Borger Street. Weir's wants customers to know Knox St. store is open The Knox Street store won't close for another six to eight months, not until demolition and construction begin, [said Mark Moore, Weir's chief executive officer](. Grapevine lands second major office deal in a week Marketing and design firm [The Trade Group]( is moving its corporate headquarters from Carrollton to a new building in Grapevine. Advertisement Health care: Pain & Profit, part 5 Texas families take fight for fragile kids to the Legislature Two decades ago, Texas lawmakers sought cheaper, more efficient ways to provide medical care for poor kids and pregnant women. Some health care policy wonks said poor Texans would benefit from a system like the private sector’s HMOs — health maintenance organizations — to make sure they got basic care but not expensive, unnecessary treatments. Under managed care, the state and federal governments pay a flat per-patient fee, which is meant to give health care companies an incentive to use the money wisely and provide better preventive care. For one tiny and little known company, [Centene Corp.](, Texas was the jet fuel it needed to build a national health care empire. AT&T's profitability is sagging because of defections of high-paying TV customers, but Time Warner appears to be managing the digital transformation better. (An Rong Xu/The New York Times) Featured columnist: Mitchell schnurman As AT&T awaits the judge, it needs Time Warner more than ever “Investors are freaked out by the profitability drop in the first quarter,” an analyst told the CEO of AT&T at a media conference last month. It was an uncharacteristically blunt take on the pressures mounting on the Dallas telecom giant as it awaits a legal ruling on Tuesday on its plan to buy Time Warner Inc. AT&T’s stock price has fallen 13 percent this year. The decline accelerated after weak quarterly results in April, which included a sharp drop in operating income and other profit measures. CEO Randall Stephenson said something else, not the profit equation, was keeping him up at night: How to make the transition from traditional pay TV to streaming products? [And that’s where Time Warner comes in.]( Follow DFW stocks: [See how top North Texas stocks performed](, as well as the oil and gas markets and major stock exchanges. DFW Top 100 Places to Work 2017: The Dallas Morning News and Workplace Dynamics partner each year to feature the [Top 100 workplaces](, based on ratings by the people who work at them. Advertisement 👋  That's all for today! For up-to-the-minute business news and analysis, check out [DallasNews.com/Business](. 💖 Share the love: If you like this newsletter, please forward this email to a friend and [check out our other newsletters here](. 📧 Do you have feedback on this newsletter? Send your thoughts, questions, praise and corrections to our Business Editor Paul O'Donnell at [podonnell@dallasnews.com](mailto:podonnell@dallasnews.com?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback). STAY CONNECTED WITH US  [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [Twitter]( [LinkedIn]( [Tumblr]( [Google]( [Reddit](  [OTHER NEWSLETTERS]( [SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS]( [Unsubscribe](  |  [Manage Preferences](  |  [Privacy Policy](  |  [Contact](  |  [Advertise]( You received this message because you signed up for this Dallas Morning News newsletter or it was forwarded to you. Copyright 2018 - [The Dallas Morning News]( | [1954 Commerce St., Dallas, TX 75201](#)