Triangle.

• Position: REGIONAL REPORT - Meshed briefs, Brainerd Chemical

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK -- Herbicide and insecticide maker Bayer CropScience is starting a seed-treatment division at its headquarters here. The company will add jobs to the 375 it has here, but it hasn't said how many it will have when fully staffed by the end of 2005. Some will come from Plano, Texas-based seed researcher Gustafson. Bayer CropScience paid $124 million earlier this year for the half of Gustafson it did not own.

CARY -- Bryn Mawr, Pa.-based Aqua America, which operates private water systems, will open a 30-employee call center here in 2006. It will be one of three for the company and will handle calls from the Carolinas, Virginia, Florida and Texas. The company hopes to double employment within five years.

DUNN -- Tulsa, Okla.-based Brainerd Chemical will open an 83,000-square-foot plant here by year-end. It will employ seven, but the company hopes to have 20 workers by 2008. It will make chemicals, including detergents, for the poultry and swine industries.

DURHAM -- Northgate Associates will spend more than $13 million to renovate the 800,000-square-foot Northgate Mall. It will add a movie theater and about 64,000 square feet of retail space outside the mall. The project is scheduled to be completed by October 2005.

DURHAM -- A Durham Superior Court jury ruled that the state Department of Transportation underpaid for hotel property that it used to widen Interstate 85. The jury says the state owes Ken Patel $2.3 million. It paid him $291,000 in 2002.

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