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City officials have agreed to pay $48.5 million of the $300 million cost of building a 1,000-room JW Marriott hotel in downtown Indianapolis, but a profit-sharing agreement that is part of the deal isn’t likely to yield payments for the city, a hotel industry expert said. Developers of the convention hotel signed a final deal […]
The holiday movie season started for me with a sneak of “The Kite Runner,” continued with the flawed-but-fascinating “No Country for Old Men,” took me through the nail-biting “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” sidetripped into the domestic drama “The…
The former Colgate-Palmolive Co. plant in Clarksville could house a new casino if efforts to transfer one of the state’s 11 gaming licenses are successful, reports the hometown News and Tribune. Sen. Bob Meeks, of LaGrange, has authored a bill that could move an unnamed casino from Gary to the one-time state prison in southern […]
Merrillville-based NiSource Inc. plans to spin off one of its natural gas pipelines into a new company. NiSource hopes to raise $235 million in an initial public offering of 12.5 million shares of NiSource Energy Partners LP. The new firm will own the 3,400-mile Columbia Gulf Transmission pipeline that extends from the Gulf of Mexico […]
Elkhart-based Forest River Inc., which makes recreational vehicles, boats and buses, has cut 40-50 jobs, reports the South Bend Tribune. The affected workers were among those who make diesel motor homes. The company, one of Elkhart County’s largest employers, had 4,700 employees at the start of the year. Production had been falling off since an […]
Aqua Indiana Inc., a unit of Pennsylvania-based Aqua America Inc., has bought Western Hancock Utilities LLC for about $5 million. Western Hancock Utilities, which provides wastewater services in western Hancock County, serves about 50 businesses and 2,500 residents in the Mount Comfort area. It will be managed out of Aqua Indiana’s office on the northeast […]
Noble Roman's Inc. wrote an impressive comeback story by selling its home-grown pizza and subs concepts to hundreds of
gas stations, bowling alleys and food courts. But the Indianapolis company’s push to add stand-alone restaurants across the
country isn’t going as smoothly.
For the past week or so, I have been flooded by phone calls from colleagues in Illinois and Michigan, chortling over a new marketing campaign launched by Hoosiers. The privately financed billboards and radio spots ask businesses and residents whether they are tired of high taxes and unresponsive government. If so, they are invited to “Come on IN” to Indiana. It’s high-order fun this holiday season. Indiana sits as a small island of growth in the Midwest, and it is…
WASHINGTON – The economy sprinted ahead at its fastest pace in four years during the summer, although it is expected to limp through the final three months of this year as the housing and credit debacles weigh on individuals and businesses alike. The Commerce Department reported Dec. 20 that gross domestic product grew at a 4.9 percent pace in the July-to-September quarter, unchanged from an estimate made a month ago. The performance was especially impressive given that the housing market…
All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth … if, perhaps, I were a member of the Indiana Ice. Who are playing pretty well, by the way. But there are other things in the realm of sports I would include on my list. All I want for Christmas is for those cheatin’ dog New England Patriots to have their comeuppance. Preferably from the Indianapolis Colts. In Gillette Stadium. In a driving snowstorm. In the AFC Championship. All I…
Employees at two Indianapolis hotels have begun a push to unionize-a move that, if successful, would make the properties the only union hotels in central Indiana. Several workers at the downtown Westin and the Keystone Sheraton have met with representatives of New York-based Unite Here, a labor group that represents about 440,000 hospitality and textile employees nationwide. Both hotels are part of Bethesda, Md.-based Host Hotels & Resorts Inc.’s global portfolio. Backers said a union is needed to raise wages…
Locally based Hammond Kennedy Whitney & Co. closed on $202 million in new capital this month, doubling its size. Its resources
have increased, but HKW’s investment philosophy is unchanged. It continues to buy small and midsize specialty manufacturing
companies, infuse them with cash and management expertise, then patiently wait for them to grow.
Lilly picks wisely at tough juncture Lechleiter well-groomed for top job Indianapolis’ business and civic leaders are rightfully worried about Eli Lilly and Co. these days. The entire pharmaceutical industry is under extraordinary pressure, in part because the blockbusters that have been its lifeblood aren’t gushing out of development pipelines anymore. Lilly faces the monstrous task of finding successors to its antipsychotic Zyprexa, whose U.S. and European patents expire in 2011-a milestone that’s expected to send the drug’s sales into…
I did my civic duty this month. I went to Hamilton Superior Court in Noblesville for jury duty. Like most people, I suspect, I sighed when I opened the envelope on the summons several weeks earlier. This will disrupt my life, I whined to myself. Even though I’d served on a Marion County jury for a criminal case several years before and enjoyed the experience, I wasn’t thrilled about being called. I’d been summoned earlier this year and had a…
In just over one quarter, shares of Celadon Group lost nearly half their value as profitable cargo got harder to find in a
slowing economy. The stock closed at $9.13 on Dec. 19, down from nearly $17 in late August.
AimFire Marketing Job hopping led marketer to become her own boss AimFire’s specialty: Optimizing Internet search engine results Little more than three years ago, Susan Young’s custom Brownsburg home had two extra bedrooms, and the daily commute to Synergy Marketing Group in Indianapolis kept her home and office in separate worlds. Today, Young has two new babies: her 7-month-old daughter, Elaina, and her young business, AimFire Marketing. One of those once-empty rooms is now the heart of her six-figure career….
With little encouragement and less financial support, mayor-elect Greg Ballard was forced to campaign as a longshot outsider. But his surprise election turned the tables. In the last six weeks, he’s been embraced quickly by Marion County’s Republican elite. And his transition team is stacked with insiders. To prepare an administration in less than two months, Ballard assembled a transition team of 24 local leaders, who then pulled in 150 volunteers to examine the current shape of city and county…
The Indiana Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF) issued a “Citizens’ Guide to Property Taxes” on Nov. 20. That document contains the following paragraph: “What factors contribute to property tax increases? Local spending is the reason for property tax increases-or decreases-depending on local fiscal management. Other factors that contributed to increases during the 2006-2007 pay cycle include the elimination of the inventory tax and the onset of the annual adjustment process, also known as ‘trending.'” Got that? Property taxes rise…
Another year gone, and yet another Christmas gift for you. Every year, I collect examples of utterly horrendous technological snafus and write about them. No matter how awful your own meltdowns may have been, they can’t have been as bad as these, so enter the new year with a light heart. The first example of disaster is fresh in the news still, at least in reports from the British Broadcasting Corp. The English government has lost disks with personal information…
We marked the winter solstice last week and ushered in the cold season. She arrived, however, on the arm of a promise that the days will grow longer and warmer, renewal waltzing in on their wake. As the seasons turn and the year wanes, indulge me a passage about passage. Early one morning long, long ago, my former wife Laura and I found ourselves seated across from one another at a small table in the basement cafeteria of Wills Eye…
