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CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: On races revered, refined and rowdy

Now that this year’s Brickyard 400 is behind us, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is making major capital investments that will lay the groundwork for another new era at the Brickyard. To the tune of several million dollars, crews are now preparing to repave the track and alter the former F-1 course for the introduction of motorcycles in September 2008. These are the latest improvements in a string of many over the last dozen years that have paid off for both…

Against the odds, Emmis grows publishing division: Unsung unit now one-fourth of company’s revenue

At a time when many print publishers are wringing their hands at the prospect of losing readers to the Internet, Emmis Communications Corp. is experiencing surprising growth in its magazine division. With the acquisition of Orange Coast last month, Emmis owns seven city-based magazines and one nationally distributed magazine. And the publishing division, with 406 of Emmis’ 1,300 employees, is the company’s fastest-growing. “City magazines like the ones Emmis has are doing quite well,” said Abe Peck, chairman of journalism…

Local convention officials look homeward to fill void: Indiana companies targeted during expansion project

The Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association hopes to soften the blow from the loss of two national trade shows with a campaign persuading Hoosier companies to choose the city for events and meetings. ICVA officials plan to launch the loosely dubbed “Bring it Home” effort Sept. 1 with a letter to corporate executives that expounds the virtues of Indianapolis. The aim is to bring business to the hospitality community during what is expected to be a slow time the next…

WellPoint aims for Hispanic market

A team inside WellPoint Inc. that created a successful product for the 20-somethings is hard at work trying to create a similar
winner among Hispanics. A roughly 25-person team has researched Hispanics for two years and now is using its findings to establish
a separate brand name, a new Web site and grass-roots techniques to reach Hispanics.

A&E: Elvis has left the production

For many people, the sign of a good musical is that you leave the theater humming the songs. But what are we to make of the recent onslaught of shows where you hum the songs going in? These “jukebox musicals” raid the song catalogues of singers, composers or bands (The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, et al.) to cobble together a score. While the practice of creating a musical out of preexisting songs goes back through music and film…

Fringe Festival seeking next level in 3rd year: Growing downtown theater festival hopes to draw cash as well as bigger crowds

Pauline Moffat, executive director of the Indianapolis Theatre Fringe Festival, expects a big turnout for this year’s two-week salute to alternative stage productions. The event takes over the Massachusetts Avenue Arts District Aug. 24 to Sept. 2, offering 228 individual performances staged by 40 theatrical troupes and presented at five different venues, including Theatre on the Square, The Phoenix Theatre and American Cabaret Theatre. Moffat hopes this season will bring a third year of attendance growth and take the event…

Indiana Downs buyout nearing finish line

The high-stakes competition for control of Indiana Downs has entered the homestretch. And South Bend-based Oliver Racing LLC
is poised to win.

Local elder care service courts working care givers: My Health Care Manager partners with local firms to reach children of aging parents on the job

Local startup My Health Care Manager has found a faster way to get its elder-care message out. It has persuaded five local employers to direct their workers to My Health Care Manager if they need help finding and coordinating care for one of their aging parents. As of Aug. 1, law firms Barnes & Thornburg, Ice Miller and Hall Render Killian Heath & Lyman, accounting firm Katz Sapper & Miller and the Indianapolis office of the Publicis advertising firm all…

SPORTS: There’s still time to savor a championship season

The Indianapolis Colts are back at it, and with their arrival in Terre Haute (which is French for “terribly hot”) comes the first round of predictions. Will they or won’t they back up their Super Bowl championship? Hey, we’ll all find out in the dead of winter, not the heat of summer … how’s that for not being either bold or profound? But words in the first week of August are just so much blah, blah, blah. So, too, as…

Software startup Vyante measures online chatter: Two-man firm lands $200,000 in grants, readies for product launch through beta tests with corporations

To make money on new software, sometimes you have to give it away. Thanks to that counterintuitive approach, tiny local IT startup Vyante Inc. has persuaded companies like Eli Lilly and Co., Roche Diagnostics, Dow Agro-Sciences and 5MetaCom to test the beta version of its new software, which tracks and measures the impact of their brands online. Vyante hopes eventually to convert the companies into paying customers. “We’ve persisted against the odds,” said Vyante Senior Technologist Benjamin Ranck. “It was…

Commentary: Mo’ money causes mo’ problems

Many of you who read this column know I do a number of things to make a living. I host the morning radio show at WXNT-AM 1430, practice law, write this column, teach at the University of Indianapolis and Ivy Tech Community College, act, perform stand- and most recently started doing commentary at WRTV Channel 6. I make a pretty good living and, with the exception of my son, who inherited his adopted father’s bad spending habits, I don’t do…

RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Cell phone technology still socially backward

I’m standing in the Convention Center downtown, looking down sourly at my cell phone. The designers of the phone have failed me, and I want to know why. It was the IUPUI graduation last May, and the hallways were filled with thousands of people in fancy dress and black robes. I was trying to contact just one of those thousands, but I didn’t know his cell number. I knew he was there, and probably within a hundred yards, but without…

BEHIND THE NEWS: Tightening credit markets cast shadow over megadeals

Almost overnight, the nation’s lending climate has tightened dramatically, and the timing couldn’t be worse for two Indianapolis companies. A pair of private equity firms are trying to line up billions of dollars in debt financing to complete their $5.6 billion purchase of locally based Allison Transmission from General Motors Corp. Meanwhile, locally based Finish Line Inc. plans to rely on debt to pay nearly the entire cost of its $1.5 billion acquisition of Tennessee-based Genesco Inc. Those deals still…

SURF THIS: With tech tasks, define success before measuring it

I had a boss once who was infamous for his adages, always having one of these nuggets immediately at the ready. True, he would occasionally misfire, tossing off a “let’s throw it against the wall and see what sticks” when the situation may have clearly called for something more genteel like “run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.” But most of the time, he was right on the money. One of his favorites was the old “How do…

Working in Dinosphere lab painstaking, but rewarding

Working three years on one project can be tedious, but Mark Sims enjoys every minute he spends preparing dinosaur fossils
for display at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. Sims, 44, works in the Paleo Prep Lab at the museum’s Dinosphere exhibit,
picking away at the dirt left on 65-million-year-old fossils.

Class A towers paying B taxes

When it comes to advertising and marketing, the city’s two tallest skyscrapers are Class A, all the way. But throw out that
notion at tax time. The owners of Chase Tower and OneAmerica Tower–and some of the city’s other large office buildings–have
successfully lobbied for lower building “grades” that save them big bucks on property taxes.

Hotel glut developing downtown: Lodging projects could lift room totals by 40 percent

The 10 hotels either under construction or in the planning stages downtown would increase the amount of rooms in the city’s center more than 40 percent-a far greater number than the market likely could absorb, experts fear. The projects are largely in response to Lucas Oil Stadium, slated to be completed by August 2008 and an expansion of the Indiana Convention Center that will nearly double its size by 2010. If all 10 hotel projects come to fruition, almost 2,300…

At last: Penn Centre rendering

Here’s a preliminary rendering of the Penn Centre development planned along Pennsylvania Street between Maryland and Georgia streets. The J. Greg Allen project is being designed by locally based Browning Day Mullins…

Escalade profit shoots up on archery sales

Profit is booming at Escalade Inc. thanks to growing sales of archery equipment along with fewer discounts on other sporting goods. The Evansville company said today that earnings shot up 105 percent, to $2.4 million, in the second quarter ended July 14. Most of the increase was driven by archery sales, said Chief Financial Officer […]