Center Township has real estate holdings worth more than $10 million, according to IBJ research. The township’s robust real estate portfolio—highly unusual for an Indiana township—fits Trustee Carl L. Drummer's vision for his taxpayer-supported office. But it makes others see red.
Indiana’s wineries faced potential ruin in early 2006. The U.S. Supreme Court had handed down a decision requiring states to treat in-state and out-ofstate wineries the same. That meant if Indiana wineries were allowed to continue to ship directly to Indiana consumers, out-of-state wineries would be entitled to the same access. Or the state could ban all direct shipments of wine to Hoosier consumers. That’s exactly what wholesalers wanted. But that would have spelled disaster for Hoosier wineries. The wineries…
Three developers are vying for the chance to build a four-story, 250- to 300-room hotel connected to the new $974 million midfield terminal and garage at the Indianapolis International Airport.
Paying closing costs on a home or, better yet, asking that a potential employer purchase the house itself are among the brashest requests she’s fielded. Yet the owner of Quiring Associates Inc. expressed some surprise when the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota arranged to move her daughter, a recent Purdue University graduate embarking on her first job no less. “They brought a huge van down to pick up her things,” Quiring said. “They actually wanted her to know how serious they…
Two new Carmel newspapers will soon join eight others in Boone and Hamilton counties. While the region is one of the fastest growing in Indiana, journalism experts said having 10 newspapers serving a population of just under 300,000 is astounding.
The Indianapolis office of Zurich-based UBS Financial Services Inc. is experimenting with “adopting” the freshman class at Herron High School as the UBS Scholars of 2010. Its foundation made a $100,000 gift to the startup charter school, and local employees made a commitment to tutor, mentor and otherwise support its first 92 students.
Here’s a lesson they don’t teach in business school: Take an entity that loses $4 million annually and expand it 50 percent. That’s the plan St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital unveiled earlier this month when it broke ground on a new, larger Primary Care Center serving indigent, underinsured and uninsured patients. That population of poor, mostly Spanish-speaking patients has more than doubled its annual visits since 2000. St. Vincent officials say the new $4 million center is 10 years overdue. Their…
Tom King thinks its time to run the not-for-profit Indiana Sports Corp. with a for-profit mind-set, a change that could radically alter the organization credited with implementing the city’s amateur sports strategy.
Smoke coming from the Indy Racing League’s business model indicates it’s leaking oil. Two IRL teams recently folded and at least two more are in serious financial distress. Television ratings and race attendance is either flat or trailing last season.
Butler University underclassmen got what some saw as very bad news last week: Starting in the fall of 2007, juniors-like freshmen and sophomores-will be required to live on campus. The university claims the new rule will make for a stronger on-campus community, but the change coincides with Butler’s struggle to fill a new 500-bed apartment facility, where rents are higher than offcampus rental houses. Butler President Bobby Fong said a change has been underway for years to try to align…
In the 2-1/2 years following a 2003 overhaul of Conner Prairie management orchestrated by Earlham College, the Hamilton County attraction was mired in uncertainty over its future and an increasingly bleak financial outlook. Now the skies are brightening.
City Securities Corp., one of the largest investment firms based in Indiana, has purchased Columbus, Ohio-based ReCasa Financial Group LLC, a specialty lender focused on rehabs of dilapidated houses.
The idea of rapid transit is popular locally, but there’s no consensus on how to finance it. For construction alone, it would cost at least $546 million for suburban express bus service up to $1.4 billion for an "automated guideway" system similar to a monorail. And that's for only one corridor.
Women need to be active participants in planning for a secure financial future When Elaine E. Bedel started her practice as a certified financial planner nearly 30 years ago, she and her colleagues spent most of their time educating clients on the basics of developing an overall strategy for their financial future. Up until then, the typical retirement revolved around employer pensions and maybe a few outside investments. And most clients were men. It was typical for the husband to handle…
When Colleen Brown graduated from the Indiana University School of Medicine in May, she was part of a class making history. For the first time, the medical school was graduating more women physicians than men-131 and 128, respectively. Since 1970, there has been a 10-fold increase in the number of women physicians, according to a February 2006 study by the American Medical Association. In 1970, only 25,404 women graduated in the United States in all medical specialties. By 2004, the…
Capital is the lifeblood of any business. But fresh infusions of money are particularly important for startup and small businesses, since they often can’t fund new equipment, employees or facilities out of their cash reserves or profits. The top three sources of new capital for small business are owner’s equity (33 percent) bank loans (20 percent) and trade credit (15 percent). Let’s focus on bank loans and simple ways that small-business owners can improve their chances of getting a loan…
Their answer: a need. As in, one cannot exist without food, shelter and a $175 pair of sneakers. While the marketing folks at Nike would smile at the association, it makes personal finance experts like Avery cringe. They say it’s another example of an alarming level of financial ignorance that has allowed nationwide consumer debt to zoom past $2 trillion. And the pain is especially acute in Indiana. “You don’t have to look far beyond the bankruptcy and foreclosure statistics…
If David B. Girton isn’t already regarded as an innovator in the local investment brokerage community, he should be now. The 45-year-old Indianapolis native is in the process of launching Liger Securities Corp., the only locally owned black investment firm in the city. But 10 years ago, he accomplished a similar first, when he opened the local office of Cleveland-based SBK-Brooks Investment Corp., then the only black-operated brokerage here. Make no mistake, though, Girton’s credentials far outweigh his designation as…
Indianapolis-based USA Funds is a large, complex organization, and members of its governing board are busy people. Same goes for the NCAA, another local not-for-profit with a national reach, a nine-figure budget and directors who are anything but professional volunteers. The two organizations have one key difference, though: USA Funds pays its board members. The NCAA does not. “It’s simply the nature of the world,” said Norm Lefstein, an Indiana University law professor who chairs the compensation committee at student-loan…
At least two large Indianapolis not-for-profits have been investigated-and cleared-as part of an Internal Revenue Service examination of compensation practices at tax-exempt organizations. Preliminary results of the nationwide inquiry aren’t expected until fall, but the scrutiny already has increased the volume in an ongoing debate over how not-for-profit executives should be paid. Some observers have called for setting limits on not-for-profit compensation, citing the charitable nature of the work. Others insist sixor seven-figure pay packages are not out of line…
