Core Communities LLC, the company behind the Tradition community and Port St. Lucie’s biggest developer, is trying to renegotiate two major loans as the value of its property has dropped.

Core’s parent company, Fort Lauderdale-based Woodbridge Holdings Corp. (Pink Sheets: WDGH), warned in its first-quarter report last week that Core was dealing with “cash flow deficits” and said its lenders are seeking payments to more closely align two development loans with the depleted value of Core’s land.

The deterioration of the real estate market and the possibility of those cash payments “raise substantial doubt regarding Core’s ability to continue as a going concern,” Woodbridge states in the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. And Woodbridge points out that it’s under no obligation to inject cash into Core. (more…)

VERO BEACH — Sales of Piper Aircraft Inc.’s planes lost altitude during the first quarter, dropping 49 percent compared with the first quarter of 2008.

The Vero Beach-based plane maker shipped 22 planes worth $20.8 million from January through March, down from 43 planes worth $33.2 million during the same period last year, according to figures released Tuesday by the Washington D.C.-based General Aviation Manufacturers Association.

Piper’s results mirrored trends across the industry, which reported a 41 percent drop in shipments.

STUART — A judge Wednesday ordered the former owner of Arthur’s Dockside restaurant to spend a year in the county jail on a tax fraud charge, prompting his wife to burst into tears and break down outside court.

Arthur Dombrose, 71, was also ordered to serve two years of community control and two years of probation.

Standing before Martin Circuit Judge Sherwood Bauer, Dombrose showed little emotion as deputies fingerprinted him and led him away.

Last July Dombrose entered a plea of no contest to a first-degree felony tax fraud charge after failing to pay $187,000 in sales tax collected from customers between March 2005 and April 2006. (more…)

While foreclosure actions on the Treasure Coast continued to fall during the first quarter of this year from the last quarter of 2008, the numbers for March indicate a resurgence.

Foreclosure actions — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were down 18.5 percent in Indian River County, 3.3 percent in St. Lucie County and up 1.1 percent in Martin County in the first quarter compared with the last quarter of 2008, according to U.S. Foreclosure Market Report released today by RealtyTrac (realtytrac.com). Those first-quarter numbers were still up 40 percent to 68 percent from a year ago.

But foreclosure actions in March rose 71 percent from February in Indian River County and 48 percent in St. Lucie County, though they declined 6 percent in Martin County.
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Is there such a thing as a recession-proof business?

Mark Libratore, whose Stuart company sells diabetes equipment and other medical supplies, thinks his comes close.

Last week — the same week Florida’s unemployment hit its highest level since 1976 — Libratore’s Liberator Medical Supply said it intends to hire 200 employees within the next two years. That’s including the 50 jobs it announced in January. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — A U.S. Appeals Court upheld a lower court’s ruling that Port St. Lucie resident Colleen Demers was wrongly fired by Adams Homes when she took maternity leave four years ago and reinstated the $5,000 in damages awarded by the jury.

Demers worked as a real estate agent for Adams Homes, which builds houses in Viera, Melbourne and West Melbourne, when she became pregnant in 2005. The company dismissed her, claiming she was an independent contractor and not entitled to family leave benefits.

But a trial judge in Orlando last year ruled the company had treated Demers as an employee for 3 1/2 years and offered no evidence that she was an independent contractor. (more…)

VERO BEACH — In a rare criminal case, a jury convicted a Vero Beach man of murder and selling drugs in the drug-overdose death of one of his customers.

William McCartney III, of Vero Beach, was convicted Wednesday of murder and illegally selling drugs, including two capsules of methadone that Nolan Adams, 19, took before dying at his home early Jan. 25, 2005.

Adams died in his bed several hours after buying the potent drugs at McCartney’s apartment along Indian River Boulevard. (more…)

STUART — Cotton & Co. in Stuart released a survey focused on buyer confidence, attitudes and beliefs on the real estate market’s recovery.

About 12 percent of survey respondents said they believe the real estate market has reached the bottom while 34 percent believe it will reach the bottom within 6 months. Another 65 percent believe the real estate market would reach the bottom within 12 months and 39 percent believe reduction in inventory levels signals a market turnaround.
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Beth Mazzouccolo, a widow with two children and her 86-year-old mother living at home, is concerned about landing a new job and being able to pay for health care.

But she’s hopeful that President Obama’s $75 billion housing plan will allow her to reduce her monthly mortgage payments.

With her unemployment benefits soon to run out, Mazzouccolo’s income tax refund has allowed her to catch up on her $1,600-a-month mortgage on the Fisherman’s Cove duplex in Stuart that is now worth nearly $40,000 less than the $195,000 she bought it for two years ago. (more…)

VERO BEACH — Security was tight at the Riverside Theatre Monday when humanitarian, author and Dutch feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali spoke to an overflow crowd about issues in the Muslim world.

The backstage area for the theater was locked down for security reasons, and patrons with bags had to submit to a search by theater personnel, marketing director Oscar Sales said. Vero Beach police officers were also stationed at the building’s entrances and exits.

Hirsi Ali is a 40-year-old Somalia native and former member of the Dutch Parliament who is well known for defending the rights of women in Muslim society. She gained international attention following the murder of Theo Van Gogh, who had directed her short film “Submission,” a documentary about the oppression of women under Islam. The assassin, a radical Muslim, left a death threat for her pinned to Van Gogh’s chest.

During her prepared remarks on Monday, the second speaker for this year’s Distinguished Lecturer series told the audience there are two schools of thought regarding the religion of Islam. (more…)