For years, the Journal Star published a "top 10" list of the biggest local business stories of the year.
Since we are coming to the end of the decade, I thought it would be fun to revisit what I considered the top annual story. Happy New Year!
2010
This one was an easy choice. Hands down, in my opinion, the biggest business story of the first year of the decade was the collapse of Lincoln's TierOne Bank.
After years of bad loans in states where the housing bust had hit the hardest, such as Florida and Nevada, a failed merger attempt and a cratering stock price, TierOne was taken over by federal banking regulators in June of that year.
TierOne at the time was the largest bank based in Lincoln, with nearly $3 billion in assets and more than 750 employees, more than 200 of whom lost their jobs when the bank's branches and deposits were sold to Great Western Bank.
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What to this day is still the largest bank failure in Nebraska also led to convictions and prison sentences for three executives, including CEO Gilbert Lundstrom, for fraud and conspiracy to cover up the bank's woes.
2011
This year's choice was a bit less clear cut. There were some big retail announcements -- a second Sam's Club, a new Super Saver in Fallbrook, as well as the announcement of the naming rights deal for Pinnacle Bank Arena. There also were some big job announcements at companies including Nelnet and Cabela's.
However, the story I chose was more reflective of the big picture. In October 2011, Lincoln set a record for the number of jobs in the local economy.
That record has since been broken many times over, but what made it so noteworthy in 2011 was that it also marked a complete recovery from all the jobs lost during the recession.
2012
This is another year where it was pretty easy to choose the top story, which was the shutdown of the former Novartis plant east of Lincoln because of quality-control problems.
The shutdown actually started late in 2011, but it became a national story in 2012. The Lincoln plant, which made Excedrin, Bufferin, NoDoz, Gas-X, Triaminic, Lamisil and Theraflu, was responsible for about a quarter of Novartis' worldwide over-the-counter drug production, and it saw sales of those drugs fall by nearly $800 million for the year.
2013
This is another year where it wasn't clear cut what the top business story was. In fact, our former business editor, Dick Piersol, and I actually broke from tradition of naming 10 top business stories because the two of us couldn't agree on a list.
There were continued problems at Novartis, with the announcement of 300 layoffs, as well as big growth at Nelnet, which hired 300 people in Lincoln and announced plans to open an Omaha office.
However, the story that year that was most noteworthy in my opinion was the opening of the first businesses in The Railyard in conjunction with the first Pinnacle Bank Arena events.
When Michael Buble performed the first-ever concert in the arena on Sept. 13 of that year, there were three businesses open in the entertainment district: Buffalo Wings & Rings, Gate 25 and Hiro 88. Several other businesses opened in The Railyard later that year.
2014
This was another year with a lot of significant local business stories but not really a "knock-it-out-of-the-park" one.
However, there was one story that affected a lot of people not just in Lincoln but across the state.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska, the state's largest health insurer, and CHI Health, its largest hospital system, failed to come to an agreement on a new contract, which meant CHI facilities were out of network for those with Blue Cross insurance.
The dispute was not resolved until a year later, and it took a big financial toll on CHI Health, which laid off workers in Lincoln and across the state and saw its income drop by $50 million in the last half of the year.
2015
This was the toughest year to decide, so much so that I'm going to designate a 1A and 1B top story.
There were two huge business news events in this year. The first was Hudl's announcement that it would be building a new seven-story headquarters in the West Haymarket, with plans to hire 300 new employees. The news came on the heels of the software company's $72.5 million infusion of venture capital, the most ever for a Nebraska-based company.
As big as that story was, though, it's only 1B for the year. That's because Nelnet, one of Hudl's biggest investors, went and bought a telecommunications company.
In November 2015, Nelnet bought Allo Communications for more than $46 million. That's a nice chunk of change, but what made the story rise to 1A for the year was the announcement that Allo, with Nelnet's help, was going to run fiber throughout the city and bring 1-gigabit internet to every household and business.
2016
It's not often that plans for a single retail store in a city of almost 300,000 people can rise to the level of the biggest business story of the year, but that was the case with Costco.
The warehouse retailer had long been one of the stores Lincolnites coveted, but its choice of a location at 16th Street and Pine Lake Road, just a couple of blocks from two schools, set off a firestorm of opposition.
The company's plans were first revealed in August, and, after several neighborhood meetings and Planning Commission and City Council meetings, the store was approved for the site in January 2017 and opened in September of that year.
2017
Costco opened in 2017, as did the city's first Dick's Sporting Goods. Hudl moved into its new state-of-the-art headquarters. A $90 million redevelopment project was announced for the site of the Journal Star.
Those were all big business news stories, but, with a couple of years to look back, the biggest story of 2017 for me was the sale of Cabela's to Bass Pro Shops.
It was a statewide story with some pretty big local significance. At the time, it seemed as though Cabela's credit card operation based in Lincoln, which was sold to Capital One, would be unscathed in the deal. That turned out not to be the case, as Capital One last year cut more than 150 of the roughly 500 employees based in Lincoln.
Lincoln has fared better than Sidney, which has seen at least several hundred jobs disappear because of the merger.
2018
This is another one of those years where, in my opinion, there was no clear-cut top business story.
You could argue for the announcement of Lied Place, the 250-foot-tall condo building at 11th and Q streets, which will be the second-tallest building in the city when completed. You also could make a case for the first Costco-affiliated chicken farm being proposed in Lancaster County, which nearly 18 months later is still being litigated.
To me, though, the biggest business story of 2018 was the wave of retail closures finally slamming into Lincoln. Both Toys 'R' Us and Younkers closed their doors, as did a number of other national chains. Local mainstay Post & Nickel shut down after 52 years. Shopko announced it was closing its north Lincoln location, a prelude to it eventually going out of business and shuttering all its Lincoln locations.
2019
I have a feeling that my choice of the biggest business story of 2019 could also easily be the biggest story of 2020, especially if the company rumored to be behind it finally makes an official announcement.
To me, the plans for a data center at the 56th Street exit on Interstate 80 is hands-down the top business story of 2019.
Nicknamed Project Agate, the plan calls for a $600 million investment and potentially 2 million square feet of space and nearly 1,000 employees within 20 years.
Stay tuned to find out who's behind it. I expect an announcement to come sometime in the next six to nine months.