Ball State downtown outpost to offer classes, master’s degrees
Ball State University is preparing to stake a big claim in downtown Indianapolis, where it will offer classes and graduate degree programs at a new satellite facility.
Ball State University is preparing to stake a big claim in downtown Indianapolis, where it will offer classes and graduate degree programs at a new satellite facility.
Imagine a vaccine that kills salmonella bacteria in chickens long before they reach the food-processing center, possibly reducing the chance of a food-borne illness landing on your dinner plate. That’s one of the possibilities researchers are thinking about on the northwest side of Indianapolis, where Dow AgroSciences has become a pioneer in the new frontier of plant-based vaccines. Earlier this year, the subsidiary of Dow Chemical Co. received the world’s first regulatory approval for a plant-made vaccine from the U.S….
Fifty years ago, economist Charles Tiebout expressed a vision of how freeing local governments to pursue their own unique strategies for setting taxes and providing services could produce an efficient outcome much like the private marketplace. He called it “voting with your feet.” The idea was simple-by moving, people could sort themselves out and live in communities that came closest to providing the tax and expenditure combinations they valued most. Reality is quite a bit more complicated. When people move…
Although I consider myself a reasonably intelligent individual, there are some things I don’t understand, like why there’s Braille at drive-through ATMs, why some bookmarks cost $1 (it would be easier to use the dollar), and why we have most sex-offender laws. There are numerous sex-offender laws going into effect July 1 in Indiana. Some make sense, like lifetime probation for sexually violent persons that can be revoked should an offender commit another offense. There are some, like Marion County’s…
Forrest Gump owned a shrimp boat. Tim and Julie Connor have a shrimp farm instead. The couple, who live on 22 acres near Monrovia, are in their third season raising prawn, or large shrimp, from a pond on their property. The $4,000 they earned last year from selling 350 pounds of the crustaceans to the public is hardly enough to cause Tim, 47, to retire from the job he’s held at Allison Transmission for 28 years. But if the sideline…
As an economic forecaster, I am almost always optimistic. But that’s not a personality trait. It’s the nature of the business. The economy around us is doing amazingly well. We’ve had much longer economic expansions, steady job and income growth, and less frequent recessions for more than two decades now. So when you deliver an optimistic forecast these days, you stand a pretty good chance of being right. But if there’s one area where my optimism vanishes, it is this-how…
Log one more entry into the crowded field of downtown condo projects. But developers of a 10-story development at Massachusetts Avenue and New York Street think its location and amenities will reel in high-end buyers. The condos, dubbed Three Mass Ave, will be developed by a three-way partnership of Halakar Properties Inc., Pillar Investments LLC and architect Wayne Schmidt. “We want to make sure that this is a classy building that fits in with the historic nature of Mass Ave…
Treasury Secretary John Snow resigned recently, and President Bush picked Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson to replace him. When Snow took the job, there was rampant talk that he favored a weak dollar policy, and the same buzz is now surrounding Paulson. I am not sure the talk is warranted, but I know a weak dollar policy is insane. John Snow’s official line on the dollar has been to let the market work it out. He accused China of intentionally…
There were no Civil War battles fought in central Indiana. That won’t stop 400 soldiers in inhumanely hot wool uniforms from re-enacting a massive battle June 10-11 at Conner Prairie. Confederate and Union flags will wave. Brass instruments will sound. Cannon blasts will shake the trees. Sixty armed men on horses will lead the charge. The fighting will last less than an hour each day. The Hamilton County living-history museum hopes the economic effects last much longer. With the 150th…
Eli Lilly and Co. President John Lechleiter is among the wealthy buyers who have snapped up all but four of the 15 private residences perched atop the Conrad Hotel downtown. Lechleiter will be on the 23rd floor, one level from the top. Pete Piazza, president of Piazza Produce Inc., will be on the 22nd. And insuranceindustry executive Jack Mead will be on the 21st. The 15 residences fill the top six floors of the new $100 million tower. They start…
Inventions at various stages of development are scattered around Qamar Shafeek’s ranch-style home on Indianapolis’ east side. An unnamed doohickey attached to a curtain rod pulls drapes open and shut along with the sliding glass door. A voice box gadget tells the single father when the garage or side doors open, alerting him to his children’s comings and goings. And a plastic pinwheel with tennis balls attached to the ends is making its way from a napkin-sketch idea to a…
Vacancies at Circle Centre mall hit a five-year high in 2005. But so did salesper-square foot. How does one reconcile the discrepancy? Observers say the mall is luring more high-end consumers with trendier shops despite having a big chunk of open space. “They’ve been incorporating and attracting more productive and upscale retail concepts,” said Terry Sweeney, vice president of real estate development for Indianapolis Downtown Inc. The 10-year-old mall posted $393 in sales per square foot in 2005, up from…
After sitting vacant for at least three years, the Illinois Building at the southeast corner of Market and Illinois streets is gaining attention as one historic preservation group tries to forestall any plans that might include tearing it down. The Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana added the building to its “10 Most Endangered” landmarks list earlier this year. The group said it’s ringing the alarm bells due in part to what Landmarks employees are hearing. “We have heard from a…
Dear Reader: For six years, I’ve filled this weekly space with notions, gnashings, drivel and diatribes. From time to time, some readers have responded-often with nods of agreement, occasionally with headshaking disbelief, once in a while with outraged indignation. Now that we’ve built something of a virtual community (call it a Neanderthal blog), I want to ask you a question. Yes, I mean you. Please don’t assume someone else will answer. And please, don’t feel that your insights and opinions…
Despite a high-profile raid against IFCO Systems on April 19, Indianapolis employers have little to fear in hiring undocumented aliens or those who present questionable identification. Rarely do immigration cops bust an Indianapolis-area workplace. Until federal agents led away about 40 allegedly undocumented Mexicans and Guatemalans at the south-side pallet plant this month, the last high-profile raid was more than a decade ago. In 1995, customs officials raided the former Simpson Race Products shoe factory in Speedway, nabbing 66 illegal…
“If somebody wipes one of them out, the associated residence goes with it,” he says, only half jokingly. Now in his 14th season in t h e m o t o r – sports industry, Crawford, 38, decided to hoist his own flag for the first time this year in the Indy Pro Series, open-wheel racing’s highest minor league. For the record, he’s not a wealthy man. The second property is the only investment he and his wife, Myra, haven’t…
Many issues face national and local civil and criminal justice systems across our nation. Years and years of application of Band-Aid remedies to complicated and longterm problems have brought many government systems to the verge of collapse. Marion County is no exception to the rule. Courts are strained with overwhelming caseloads. Average lives of cases continue to increase, clogging jails and courts. Public defender and prosecutor caseloads continue to swell, effectively reducing the quality of representation available to both the…
Rick Barretto started filling his basement with arcade games soon after graduating from Indiana University. An avid gamer since his youth, he loved to play, but to get the games he wanted, he had to buy fullsized arcade cabinets-12 of them. His basement was only so big, and his wife’s tolerance only so high. “My wife was saying, ‘There’s got to be a better way,'” said Barretto, 39. So he put his college computer-science classes to work and spent more…
New guidelines due out in June will call for newly constructed hospitals to come equipped with all private patient rooms, the first time such a minimum requirement has been issued. The guidelines, published every four years by the Facilities Guidelines Institute and the American Institute of Architects’ Academy of Health, are used by nearly 40 state governments-including Indiana-to set regulations, approve construction plans and license hospitals to operate. And hospitals nationwide-including those in Indiana-are expected to embrace the guidelines that…
Somebody once said computers permit you to make terrible mistakes faster than any other invention in history, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila. Those among us who have lost friends, clients or jobs as a result of misunderstood e-mails would probably vote for computers. At least handguns and tequila look a little menacing, and there’s no way to mistake their purposes. E-mails, on the other hand, are friendly, fast and seemingly innocuous. Many of us shoot off dozens…