The Schlesinger Companies have completed a major lobby renovation at the Bank of America Financial Center in downtown Vancouver. The upgrade began in fall 2007 and included stone flooring, new carpet, paint, energy-efficient light and local artwork. The 10-story building offers 275,000 square feet of class A office space with underground parking. Tenants are Bank of America and Princeton Athletic Club as well as law firms and financial service companies.

A new establishment called the Pho Ton Restaurant is open at 6000 N.E. Fourth Plain Blvd., east of the Grocery Outlet. Menu items feature Vietnamese cuisine, such as Pho noodle soup, vermicelli noodles, grilled meats and pad Thai.  

Mortgage rates fell this week with 30-year mortgage rates dropping to the lowest level in six weeks as investors became less worried that the Federal Reserve would soon tighten credit policy to stall inflation. Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, reported today that 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.26 percent this week. That was down from 6.37 percent last week. It marked only the second weekly decline in the past eight weeks and left the 30-year rate at the lowest point since it averaged 6.09 percent the week of June 5.  

The license of a Vancouver medical doctor has been suspended after an investigation by the Washington Department of Health. The investigation found that Dr. Patrick Chau prescribed unwarranted amounts of medications to his patients. The suspension took place after Chau already had been on probation for two years for the same actions. Chau can not practice medicine pending the outcome of a hearing before the state Medical Quality Assurance Commission.

Prices dropped by more than two cents to an average of $4.30 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline this week in Vancouver, reported AAA Oregon/Idaho. That's five cents below the June 28 record high of $4.35. A year ago, regular unleaded averaged $3.02 in Vancouver. In Portland, gasoline averaged $4.27 Tuesday, down two cents from last week. Crude oil was trading at about $145 per barrel Tuesday, down from last week's $147 peak. The price of crude oil is not being fully reflected at the pump, in part because retailers have held prices down in order to attract drivers who purchase higher-profit convenience store items, said AAA.

Wells Fargo Bank, which operates in Clark County, gave investors a pleasant surprise today, reporting a profit drop that was milder than anticipated and lifting its quarterly dividend by 10 percent.
Wells Fargo's second-quarter profit fell 22 percent as more customers at the nation's fifth-largest bank failed to pay back their loans. But it raised its dividend to 34 cents from 31 cents. Wells Fargo & Co. earned $1.75 billion, or 53 cents per share, in the April to June period, down from $2.28 billion, or 67 cents per share, in the same time frame last year, said an Associated Press report. 

Vancouver-based Riverview Bancorp Inc. on Tuesday reported a 72 percent drop in its first-quarter net income because of expected losses from unpaid loans.

In the three months ending June 30, the share of non-performing assets, or unpaid loans, on Riverview’s books grew more than tenfold from a year earlier, to $23.6 million, or 2.67 percent of the bank’s total assets, the company reported.

Executives set aside $2.75 million to cover loans they don’t expect will be repaid. The move reduced net income for the quarter to $793,000. In the same three months in 2007, the bank reported net income of $2.8 million, and set aside $50,000 for loan losses. Read more.

The Oregonian newspaper is closing three metro bureaus including its Vancouver location and merging the staffs into three other bureaus. Fred Stickel, publisher of Oregon's largest daily newspaper, said the staff of the bureaus in Gresham, Tigard and Vancouver will move to the south bureau in Oregon City, the west bureau in Southwest Portland and the Multnomah County bureau in Portland. Stickel told the Portland Business Journal that the Gresham bureau staff will move to the Multnomah County bureau, but said details for the other bureaus are still being worked out. Stickel said there would be no layoffs of staff as a result of the consolidation. The
Oregonian has maintained an office at 1400 Columbia St. in downtown Vancouver.