After shutting their doors for about six months, museums and attractions recently began seeing visitors again. The leaders of two of the area’s largest attractions joined us for BizTalk at noon Wednesday to talk about the reopening. Anne Brennan, executive director of the Cameron Art Museum, and Hap Fatzinger, director of the N.C. Aquarium at Fort Fisher, also dis ...

A new avenue of state funding could boost some small businesses across the Cape Fear region suffering because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Small businesses are the foundation of the local economy providing about 45% of the regional workforce, said Heather McWhorter, regional director of the Small Business and Technology Development Center (SBTDC) office at the University o ...

This year’s WilmingtonBiz Conference & Expo is bringing back memories.   Under vastly different circum­stances, Greater Wilmington Busi­ness Journal launched our region’s annual business expo in January 2011 soon after the Wilmington Convention Center opened.   Our goal was simple – help our often disconnected business commu­ ...

A partnership has formed on a survey aimed at gauging the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on minority-owned and women-owned businesses in the Cape Fear region. The initiative is being undertaken by Genesis Block and Cape Fear Collective, which teamed up with ResilNC to distribute in early September the ResilNC Small Business Needs Assessment Survey in the South ...

The upcoming Wilmington Boat Show will be the Wilmington Convention Center's biggest event since state efforts to slow the coronavirus pandemic began restricting large gatherings, a convention center official said.  The Wilmington Convention Center, 10 Convention Center Drive in downtown Wilmington, is hosting the October event under Gov. Roy Cooper's ...

A few weeks ago, school started for college students across North Carolina as the coronavirus pandemic continued, and subsequently, COVID-19 clusters began showing up on campuses. At the University of North Carolina Wilmington, 250 positive cases among students had been reported as of Wednesday morning, according to the school's COVID-19 dashboard. Five cases h ...

Amazon has been shipping books to clients since 1995, but some independent bookstores have been operating for much longer than that in Wilmington. “I don’t think [Amazon CEO] Jeff Bezos cares two figs for Wilmington, for the children who live here, or for the future of our community,” said Old Books on Front Street owner Gwenyfar Rohler. “But eac ...

Area gyms are bracing for opening at a 30% capacity this Friday, following Gov. Roy Cooper's announcement of the state's phase 2.5 of the economic reopening plan. The area's three Planet Fitness locations in mid-August, however, decided to open, following a number of Wilmington gyms already open under a ruling that allowed gyms to be open for clients wi ...

Cape Fear Community College announced Tuesday the offering of an online contact tracing certificate through a college learning partner, 4MedPlus. Contact tracing is used to help slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Contact tracers interview those who have been recently diagnosed with COVID-10 to identify and notify their close contacts of potential exposure, a n ...

After being shuttered for more than five months, Gravity Records reopened to the public Saturday. It was a whirlwind 167 days, according to owner Matt Keen. Although the brick and mortar was closed, the store still operated in a nontraditional manner—and he had to hire additional staff to keep it going. "We had to work four times as hard to make a quarter ...