Going out of business
Several stores are calling it quits at local malls. The highest profile is the Macy’s at Washington Square. Other closings include Gap stores, a Limited Too and The Walking Co. Have…
Several stores are calling it quits at local malls. The highest profile is the Macy’s at Washington Square. Other closings include Gap stores, a Limited Too and The Walking Co. Have…
The handful of retailers who have persevered through hard times for Washington Square Mall felt encouraged in recent years as newcomers Steve & Barry’s University Sportswear and Buffalo Wild Wings arrived. But the holiday season brought grim news: Macy’s now plans to close, and Gap won’t be far behind. Besides Caramelcorn, MCL and change, few things have been constant at the east-side mall since it opened in 1974. The 965,000-square-foot mall was 21 percent vacant last year, the worst occupancy…
As I waited in line at the cafeteria just into the new year, I watched the man in front of me. It would be easy to assume the salad and wrap station would provide patrons with a healthful lunch option. Yet I saw a generous portion of fried chicken in a spinach tortilla topped with a pile of cheese and several servings of salad dressing. The man might have started with good intentions, but in a matter of seconds a…
The parent company of Circle Centre Mall anchor Carson Pirie Scott has joined a growing list of retailers struggling to stay afloat after disappointing fourth-quarter sales. About half…
Another high-profile local developer is making a move to capitalize on the city’s hottest retail corridor, joining mall giant
Simon Property Group Inc. and upstart Premier Properties USA Inc. Kite Realty Group Trust paid $18.3 million for Rivers Edge
shopping center, a 111,000-square-foot property just east of Clearwater Crossing.
Phony going-out-of-business sales long have plagued Oriental rug retailing here and across the country, dealers say. The industry
is susceptible because Oriental rugs can cost thousands of dollars, and many consumers lack the expertise to judge whether
a rug’s quality matches its price.
It’s not easy to make a living in high fashion, especially in a city where the “garment district” extends only to the nearest
Hancock or Jo Ann Fabrics. Still, Indianapolis has a little something up its sleeve–more than a dozen designers who are prepping
their collections for “Project IMA,” a fashion show modeled after Bravo’s reality hit “Project Runway.”
It took a year and a half. But Indianapolis-based Taliera Holdings LLC finally acquired its first beverage brand. Taliera, led by Indianapolis entrepreneur J. Smoke Wallin, acquired Texasbased Red Eye Brands this month. The company makes Red Eye Bloody Mary mix, as well as salsas and sauces. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. But Wallin said Red Eye holds less than 5 percent of the Bloody Mary mix market. He hopes to take the company to 10 percent three…
Monical’s Pizza plans to open new restaurants in Carmel, Fishers and Indianapolis later this year. The Illinois-based chain, known for its thin-crust pies, already has six stores in Indiana: in Avon, Lafayette,…
Anyone with young kids knows the value of a sticker. Whether a reward for a hissy-fit-free afternoon or a gift from a friendly grocery bagger, a sticker is a deceptively simple object that brings a surprising amount of pleasure. I’ll admit, I didn’t give stickers a whole lot of thought until I wandered into Alias, the unique Fountain Square gallery created by Dave and Holly Combs. The couple has been obsessed with stickers since spotting-and pondering the implications of-an “Andre…
Indianapolis-based The Finish Line Inc. and Nike Inc. are opening a concept store in the Phoenix area catering to young runners and athletes in training, the companies said today. The store, to be called Finish Line Ltd., will be divided into segments focusing on running, sport style and training, and will specialize in shoes, clothing […]
Simon Property Group continues to pitch upscale retailers on an expansion of the Fashion Mall at Keystone, although the Indianapolis developer has scaled back the project. The plans now call for the addition…
Mitch Roob oversees a state agency with a $6.5 billion budget and thousands of employees who deliver a range of services to
more than a million Hoosiers. And he’d be lost without his BlackBerry. He is just one of the many Indianapolis professionals
who use enhanced mobile devices, or smartphones, to keep tabs on their work and increase their productivity away from the
office.
The Sharper Image Corp. store at the Fashion Mall at Keystone at the Crossing will close. The bankrupt company announced Sunday that it will shutter all of its remaining stores. Eighty-six stores will be liquidated. The company liquidated 96 of its stores following its February bankruptcy, which was blamed on a slow economy and tight […]
Also noted:Indiana’s lone Sharper Image store at the Fashion Mall at Keystone will close for good in the next few weeks. The bankrupt electronics chain is closing all 86 stores. But if you plan on shopping, take note: Sharper Image…
Plea deal raises questions about ice firm’s local clout BEHIND THE NEWS Home City Ice Co. has a stranglehold on the Indianapolis-area ice market. Good for the company, you say? Not if the Cincinnati-based ice powerhouse avoided competition through old-fashioned, monopolistic shenanigans. Whether Home City did is a reasonable question to ask in light of the June 17 announcement that the company has pleaded guilty to conspiring to suppress and eliminate competition in the Detroit and southeast Michigan ice markets….
Finish Line Inc. always has been a volatile stock. Jump in at the right time and make a bundle. Pick the wrong time and take a bath. To be sure, investors who had the foresight to invest during Finish Line’s darkest days early this year-when it seemed inevitable that the company would have to close on the $1.5 billion acquisition of Tennessee-based Genesco Inc.-fall in the former category. Since hitting an all-time low of $1.48 a share Jan. 10, the…
Wall Street often is nothing more than a game of three-card monte, with the majority of players losing because they were looking at the wrong card. It is challenging enough to make money during bull markets. But during bear markets, the distractions and traps are everywhere, and they are lethal. There is a big distraction right now that is masking what could be the falling domino that sends everything else toppling over. The disaster of the month is the near-collapse…
A few months ago, after considerable cajoling, my friend Erik convinced me to join yet another online social network. This one’s called Smaller Indiana. It bills itself as “making people and ideas findable.” So now, in addition to being “LinkedIn” with a few hundred of my friends and colleagues past and present, and in addition to being what BusinessWeek calls a “fogey on Facebook,” I’m also a Smoosier-the moniker for Smaller Indiana members. No sooner had I become a Smoosier…
I’d like to put in a kind word for one of the most underused tools in business. It lets you stay in contact with lots of others online, send and receive files, make phone calls, keep in touch with things at home, and even hold Web videoconferences, after a fashion. It’s known generically as “instant messaging,” but you may know it under any number of trade names: MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, AIM and many others. I use both MSN…