Exergy’s delayed payments draw a lawsuit from a supplier

Boise’s Exergy Development Group LLC, which recently suspended some wind-farm projects, faces a new challenge: a lawsuit over missing payments for wind turbines Exergy agreed to buy less than four months ago.

A unit of AES Corp. says Exergy failed to pay up to $37.9 million for 32 turbines that were to be taken to Idaho from Pennsylvania.

Exergy CEO James Carkulis on Thursday went to Boise City Hall to pay $27,500 the company owed for police security and other work for July’s Exergy Twilight Criterium bicycle race in Downtown Boise. The city hopes Exergy will sponsor the race again in 2013.

Avimor is now home to dozens of families, and more are coming

About 40 families now live in the planned community north of Eagle, which is the only such community approved by Ada County in 2006 to survive. The number of structures on the 830-acre site has nearly tripled since last summer.

Avimor home-building began in 2008, but it was halted in 2009 by the economic crisis and a developer pull-out. Construction restarted last August with help from a group of local investors. There are now 55 homes built or under construction. The community was approved for 684 homes at full build-out.

Eagle decelerates M3 bond plans

Three Eagle City Council members on the board of the planned M3 Spring Valley infrastructure district told developers they must wait until May to put a bond up for voter approval, because the developers’ draft proposal came in too late to meet a deadline for the November ballot.

City Attorney Susan Buxton, a bond attorney, said she hadn’t heard from M3 for two months about intentions to hold a bond election in November. May is the next available election. The district can seek up to $250 million in general-obligation bonds and $75 million in revenue bonds to finance infrastructure for the 5,610-acre planned community.

Mercy Housing Northwest opens 12th & River Senior Apartments

The $12 million project, 514 S. 12th St. in Boise, is being funded by $7 million in equity through U.S. Bank with Idaho Housing and Finance Association, a loan from the city of Boise and an advance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD also is providing rental assistance for 41 of the 53 units to help the neediest of the apartments’ low-income senior population.

The apartments are the first new multifamily development dedicated to senior citizens in more than two years in the Boise area. The apartments are for people 55 or older. The apartments are 540 square feet each.

HP losses show need for reboot

Coming off a five-year stretch of miscalculations, HP is in such desperate need of a do-over that many investors have written off its chances of a comeback. In the past five years, HP has spent more than $40 billion on dozens of acquisitions that have largely turned out to be duds.

CEO Meg Whitman is trying to lower annual costs by $3.5 billion during the next two years, mostly by eliminating 27,000 jobs, or 8 percent of HP’s workforce. The number of jobs being lost in Boise, a campus of nearly 4,000 people at 11311 Chinden Blvd., is not known. An 8 percent cut would mean the loss of about 320 jobs. Some Boise workers took early-retirement buyouts.

Tech Hall of Fame to induct 2

Sandpoint physician-inventor Dr. Forrest Bird and Boise software-analytics leader Bob Lokken will be honored Oct. 2 by the Idaho Technology Council. Bird invented the first reliable, low-cost, mass-produced respirator. Lokken is founder of WhiteCloud Analytics, an Idaho software/consulting firm that provides support for hospitals. IDAHO TECHNOLOGY COLUMN, PAGE 5

Taj Mahal for sale; Carl’s to open

The owners of the Taj Mahal, 150 N. 8th St., Boise, say they are prepared to wait months for the right buyer, preferably someone from south Asia who will preserve the restaurant’s Indian and Pakistani recipes and service.

Æ The sixth local Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches will open at 1590 S. Vista Ave.

Æ Carl’s Jr. opened its second restaurant in Nampa, paired with a Green Burrito restaurant, at 1212 12th Ave. Road.