Schmand, LiPuma honored at NYSCAR dinner

A longtime downtown Buffalo advocate along with a veteran commercial real estate insider were both honored Thursday night when the Western New York chapter of New York State Association of Commercial Realtors handed its annual awards.

Five commercial brokers were cited at the dinner, attended by several hundred at Acqua restaurant.

Michael Schmand, Buffalo Place Inc. executive director, was presented with the association’s annual meritorious service award while Jeff LiPuma, the immediate past managing…

Durham, Raleigh among top 50 U.S. cities for hotels

Durham ranks No. 14 and Raleigh ranks No. 29 on a list of the top 50 cities for the best hotel accommodations.

Hotel search website Trivago aggregated user-generated hotel ratings from multiple websites to generate its “reputation rankings” for U.S. cities.

Asheville ranks No. 12 and Charlotte ranks No. 43.

The top five cities with the best hotels are Sedona, Arizona; Naples, Florida; Scottsdale, Arizona; Chicago, Illinois and Charleston, South Carolina.

Sprint will operate co-branded RadioShack stores

Sprint Corp. will more than double its retail store count as part of a deal to take on 1,750 RadioShack locations.

Overland Park-based Sprint (NYSE: S) announced Thursday that it has agreed in principle on a deal to take on the RadioShack stores (NYSE: RSH) as part of the retailer’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The arrangement calls for Sprint to operate a “store within a RadioShack store,” according to a release.

The deal calls for the sale of a portion of RadioShack Corp.’s assets and the…

Harris to buy Exelis in $4.75 billion deal

Florida-based defense contractor Harris Corp. is acquiring Exelis Inc. in McLean for $4.75 billion, the companies announced Friday.

Combined, the two giants will be among the largest companies in the federal market, with more than $8 billion in revenue and about 23,000 employees globally, including 9,000 engineers and scientists.

The deal, expected to close in June, is a cash and stock transaction valued at $23.75 per share, with Exelis shareholders receiving $16.625 in cash and 0.1025 of a share…

U.S. oil production slows as crude reality sets in

U.S. oil production dropped for the first time in 15 months as energy companies feel the pinch of falling oil prices.

November oil production topped 9 million barrels per day but it fell about 30,000 barrels short of October, according to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration. It’s the first slip for the booming U.S. oil industry since August, 2013.

The decline in oil production will likely become more noticeable in December and January when the price dipped below $50 a barrel.

Sign…