LAURA LAYDEN

It wasn't a record year for the Naples Winter Wine Festival, but Saturday's auction raised more than $8.5 million in about five hours.

The Naples Children & Education Foundation, sponsors of the festival and auction, will determine which children's charities will get proceeds from this year's festival, chaired by Naples residents Bob and Terry Edwards.

Thom Filicia made the most of his first visit to Naples. The designer, author and taste-maker came to town for Robb & Stucky International's first fundraiser at its Naples store, which opened earlier this month. He was the center of ...

A trial is winding down that could lead to a big payout for Lee County homeowners who lost their citrus trees during the state's failed canker-fighting campaign years ago.

The Naples Equestrian Challenge is taking on a new challenge — veterans. The local charity has launched Operation Strides, reaching out to veterans for the first time. The mission: To help veterans from the Afghanistan, Iraq and Gulf wars dealing ...

Jobless rates continue to fall in Lee and Collier counties, as well as in Florida overall. Lee’s jobless rate fell to 8 percent last month, down from 8.3 percent in November, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. Meanwhile, ...

As customers trickled in and out of the Sweetbay Supermarket in Green Tree Center off Immokalee Road on Thursday, some shook their heads in disbelief, surprised to learn it will soon close for the last time.

While Collier and Lee counties both saw a rise in new foreclosure filings last year, this year could reverse that trend.

Nearly a year ago, the U.S. Postal Service announced the mail processing and distribution center in Fort Myers would not be part of a billion-dollar cost-cutting effort.

Shares of Health Management Associates Inc. closed higher Monday, despite a warning that a tough economy took a toll on the company's fourth-quarter profits.

Lee and Collier counties saw a flurry of building permit activity last year, driven by a growing demand for new single-family homes.

Robb & Stucky is back, but with new owners and a new vision that becomes clearer with the opening of its newest store in downtown Naples. The two-story, 60,000-square-foot store a block north of Fifth Avenue South opens today. It's ...

Gov. Rick Scott wants to eliminate Florida's sales tax on equipment and machinery bought by businesses.

Minto Communities has closed on one of the biggest land deals in Southwest Florida since the housing market went bust.

Pippa Steinhart plans to open an indoor gun range in an industrial zone off Mercantile Avenue, near Livingston Road. She's worked on the project for three years and expects to open by March. Meanwhile, another Naples resident is gunning to ...

Two office buildings that weren't even on the market along a prime commercial stretch of U.S. 41 in Naples have sold for $11.4 million.

Lee County saw new single-family home permits grow by nearly 50 percent in 2012, a good sign the housing industry is rebounding from the Great Recession.

Florida rang in the new year with a raise for low-paid workers.

In four years, state and federal regulators have shut down nine troubled banks in Lee and Collier counties. But most of those failures happened in 2009 and 2010. There were none in 2011, while in 2012 regulators shuttered one — ...

International homebuyers aren't so foreign any more in Southwest Florida. They're coming from more countries these days, including Russia, Brazil and even China.

Employers in Lee and Collier counties added nearly 8,000 jobs in a month, as the busy season got kick-started in a way it hasn't in years.

The company that planned to launch air service between the Naples Municipal Airport and four Florida cities this year lost its operating certificate, putting it out of business.

More organic, gluten-free and waist-watching choices are part of the reason area restaurants saw record sales this year, local owners say. Stronger sales also have been driven by more tourists — and a better economy, with fewer locals out of ...

Cynthia Balterman won't be home for Christmas. She's lost a hard-fought battle to keep her home in Golden Gate Estates after it fell into foreclosure.

For the wealthy in Naples, it's giving time because the U.S. economy soon may jump off the "fiscal cliff," with the Bush-era tax cuts expiring and automatic spending cuts kicking in on Jan. 1.

For HMA, a big strategy for growth has been acquiring and partnering with other hospitals — especially ailing, independent ones in smaller communities.

With its small population, its limited number of hotel rooms and its shortage of direct flights, meeting planners would likely see Naples as a "third-tier" city if it had a convention center. "Second-tier" convention cities include the likes of Mobile, ...

Wolf became a local real estate agent after losing his job with Waterman Broadcasting of Florida in March. He's keeping his full-time job as a Realtor, but he's found another gig that's putting him on camera again in Southwest Florida.

A convention center doesn't belong just anywhere. Finding the right spot could be one of the biggest challenges if a local businessman's pitch for a convention center in the Naples area ever gains political and community support.

Up and down the state, and across the country, convention centers dot the landscape.

These are some of the convention centers that could compete with one in Collier County, if one were built here.

Commissioner Tom Henning placed 15 items on Tuesday’s commission agenda for reconsideration. The items range from contracts for employees to contracts for the Marco Island Runway project.

Lee County commissioners have agreed not to find VR Labs in default of an agreement that gave the company a $5 million county grant to build out its bottling plant and create hundreds of jobs.

Lee County commissioners will be asked today for direction on how the county attorney should deal with VR Labs, with its promised bottling plant still sitting dark and mostly empty after the start-up company spent millions in taxpayer money to ...

A Naples-based hospital operator's stock took a hit Monday, a day after an investigative "60 Minutes" report questioned its admission practices.

A Naples-based hospital operator landed on "60 Minutes" on Sunday, with the lead segment focused on accusations by more than 100 of its current and former employees that it has pressured its doctors to admit patients "regardless of medical need" ...

Executives with a Naples-based hospital operator played defense on Friday, attempting to get ahead of a scrutinizing "60 Minutes" segment that will air Sunday. Health Management Associates Inc. organized a last-minute conference call from New York for investors and analysts ...

A settlement has been struck in a federal class-action lawsuit brought against the former boss of Orion Bank.

A prime piece of real estate in the heart of Naples that's been eyed for everything from a community park to a convention center will soon be in the hands of Regions Bank.

More visitors means more jobs in Collier County's tourism industry this year. In October, there were 900 more people working directly in the leisure and hospitality sector in Collier County than a year ago. Last month, there were 22,700 direct ...

The former Grand Central Station site in downtown Naples is chugging along toward the final step of foreclosure.

Last month, 484,768 passengers traveled through the airport, up 3.3 percent from October 2011.

A decade ago, NeoGenomics Inc. was a little-known company — a newcomer in the world of diagnostic testing for cancer.

Home prices are moving on up in the Naples market. In October, the median price for homes and condos rose to $192,000, up more than 20 percent from $159,000 a year ago, according to a monthly report released Friday by ...

The best players in women's golf are expected to propel millions into the local economy, as they compete for a $1.5 million purse and $500,000 first-place check in the CME Group Titleholders tournament.

Superstorm Sandy changed New York and New Jersey, leaving millions of victims in its wake.

The vote went the way Collier County Commissioner Donna Fiala wanted Tuesday. Her strategic motion to reconsider a 4-1 vote to spend $925,000 in tourist taxes to fight erosion on a stretch of Hideaway Beach on Marco Island failed, just ...

A small family-friendly Internet-cable TV service provider in Naples is taking on a national cable satellite network, C-SPAN, in an antitrust lawsuit.

It's all about strategy. Strategy is behind a move by Collier County Commissioner Donna Fiala to ask for reconsideration of a 4-1 vote to spend $925,000 in tourist taxes to fight erosion on a stretch of Hideaway Beach on Marco ...

In Fort Myers, a new biodiesel plant began revving up a few weeks ago. The multimillion-dollar plant is owned and operated by FL Biofuels LLC, a start-up that now has more than a dozen employees.