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Hospitals battle for bone biz: St. Vincent’s ortho upgrade ups ante in lucrative niche

St. Vincent Health is spending $9 million to capture more of the city’s lucrative market for orthopedic care, a specialty that could trigger a new arms race among local hospitals. The Catholic hospital network is reworking existing space at its 86th Street campus to create a 61-bed St. Vincent Orthopedic Center that will open in July. The new center aims to consolidate care in one location and raise the quality bar to new heights. “We think we’re creating something that…

Development plans percolating in five urban corridors: East 10th Street, Fountain Square lead FOCUS pack

DataSmith Technologies owner James Smith started looking almost two years ago for a building to house his business, his home and possibly a revenue-generating tenant. What he ended up with was a dilapidated former bar on a struggling section of East 10th Street that had become a haven for vagrants. Smith took a chance on the building at 2032 E. 10th St., most recently home to Mustang Sally’s tavern, largely because of the involvement of the East 10th Street Civic…

STATEHOUSE DISPATCH: Slow-moving lawmakers have an economic upside

Is the wall finally crumbling? After years-or decades-of assiduously avoiding certain issues because they were so fraught with controversy, lawmakers now seem to be tackling them … and, at least in some cases, are finding their actions are met with a collective public yawn. Last year, spurred by Gov. Mitch Daniels, legislators confronted the controversial matter of daylight saving time, long considered the last “third-rail” issue of Hoosier politics and policy. The issue had not even been debated in recent…

David Marsh to buy Jodi $435,000 home:

Former Marsh Supermarkets President David Marsh will buy ex-company spokeswoman Jodi Marsh a $435,000 north-side home as part of the couple’s divorce settlement, court records show. David Marsh had been with the grocery chain 25 years when the board dismissed him Feb. 8. He is the son of CEO Don Marsh. Jodi Marsh resigned as vice president of community relations for the grocery chain Jan. 27, nearly two months after she filed for divorce from David. She has since joined…

VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Tenants-in-common pacts grow as investment vehicle

The real estate boom has created vast amounts of wealth for investors nationwide. As those investors seek to capitalize on that appreciation by selling properties, they will often reinvest in other real estate in order to delay the related tax bill through a likekind exchange. Internal Revenue Code Section 1031 allows taxpayers to defer income taxes on the sale of property if the proceeds are reinvested in similar or “like-kind” property. In the case of real estate, nearly all real…

BEHIND THE NEWS Safety firm’s sale a bonanza-and that’s no accident:

Aearo Technologies Inc., the maker of earplugs and other protective gear, has long been a quiet company. But given its recent performance and the announcement this month that a private equity firm is buying it for an eye-popping $765 million, no one would call it a sleepy one. Indeed, interviews and a review of regulatory filings show the northwest-side company has been on a tear, boosting sales from $284 million in fiscal 2001 to $423 million in fiscal 2005. In…

RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: The Fortune 500 begins to dance with blogs

Ford and GM do it. So do Sprint, Sun, Boeing and Xerox. But Raytheon, 3M, Kmart, McDonald’s, and most of the rest of the Fortune 500 don’t. At last count, only 22 of the Fortune 500 did it, according to Socialtext.net. Why do so few companies blog? Before going on, let’s define “blog.” A “blog” is shorthand for “weblog,” which is essentially an online diary anybody can read and anybody can annotate with comments. Blogs are not strictly Web sites,…

BULLS & BEARS: Trading too much in stocks a great way to erase profits

A common hindrance to creating wealth from stocks is overtrading. Investors feel compelled to take a profit because, as they like to say, “If you don’t sell, the gain is just ‘on paper.'” However, some of the world’s best investors commit funds to a stock and hold it for fairly long periods; not forever, but quite a while. According to the mutual-fund-ratingservice Morningstar, there is an inverse correlation between turnover and performance in the funds they monitor. Sure, some folks…

New FBI facility: tough case to crack: Government struggling to find site to build field office for bureau

The highly-sought-after job of developing a new building for the FBI’s Indianapolis field office is still in play, but it’s hampered by the federal government’s inability to find a site for the building. A bevy of local and national developers are expected to throw their hats in the ring to develop the building, which the Government Services Agency says needs to be 110,000 square feet. For the winner, it would be a high-profile project and one of the more significant…

Industrial park land sends towns into annexation battle: Avon, Plainfield both want 882-acre distribution site

A valuable piece of Hendricks County property slated for a mammoth warehouse and industrial park is pitting the neighboring towns of Avon and Plainfield against each other. The two municipalities once were cooperating to annex the 882 acres together and share the tax dollars generated by the $700 million investment that could attract 6,000 jobs. They stopped negotiating last fall and now are employing separate tactics to claim the unincorporated land. Locally based Browning Investments Inc. wants to build CentraLogistics…

VIEWPOINT: State’s STIF-necked response shortsighted

Chances are, most of you have never heard of the acronym “STIF.” The four letters stand for sales tax increment financing. Indiana has created so-called STIF districts around the state to stimulate economic development, or so we thought. STIF districts work simply: They allow a portion of sales taxes generated at new retail projects to be redirected to pay the cost of public improvements related to the projects, things like curbs and sidewalks, streets, sewers, other utilities, drainage and landscaping….

Want-ad battle brewing: Newspapers feel threatened by state’s deal with Monster

A four-year, $2.8 million deal between the DWD and McLean, Va.-based Monster Government Solutions to develop and maintain an online job search and recruitment system is coming under heavy fire, with newspaper operators saying a system funded by their own tax dollars will harm their business. DWD officials said the deal is designed to lower unemployment and boost Indiana’s economy. “We think this deal is going to result in a brain gain, keeping people employed and keeping our college graduates…

Bank profit see-sawed before sale: Union Fed investors may have tired of volatile performance

Union Federal Bank’s profits have gone up and down like an electrocardiogram since a group of elite investors bought a major stake in the privately held institution in 1999. That wildly inconsistent performance likely played a role in the decision by investors to sell the bank, experts say. On Feb. 3, both the bank and its parent company were sold to Bowling Green, Ohio-based Sky Financial Group Inc. for $330 million. The bank had been the thirdlargest in town. After…

TAWN PARENT Commentary: A law to help us reclaim summer

As I begin this column, snow is falling. But if I close my eyes I can already feel the heat of next August. I can also feel the disappointment that another summer has been cut prematurely short by the absurdly early start to the school year. So I’m cheering the success in the General Assembly of legislation that would move the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress back to the spring. The House of Representatives on Feb. 2 approved a…

NOTIONS: On Valentine’s Day, wishing you less war, more love

AT T E N T I O N READERS! We interrupt your regularly scheduled life to bring you this special emotional bulletin. For one day-and one day only-you’re encouraged to ease off the throttle of an existence so anxietyridden that Americans last year ordered up 42 million prescriptions for sleeping pills just to bring themselves down from their insomnia-inducing days. So if you’ve been violently protesting cartoons portraying Muhammad as, well, violent, you can use this day to ditch that…

BEHIND THE NEWS: Consumer spending spree gives spark to Simon stock

It’s becoming almost ho-hum for Simon Property Group Inc. Another year, another round of eye-popping returns for the company’s shareholders. The Indianapolis-based mall owner, by far the nation’s biggest real estate investment trust, just closed the book on 2005, a year when funds from operations-a key measure of REIT performance-zipped up another 13 percent. Simon shares last year rose 18 percent. Including reinvested dividends, the stock in 2005 returned 23 percent. It was the fifth year in a row the…

City’s cultural districts take artful approach: Five areas use $250,000 in grants on original public art projects

Two wall-size murals now welcome people to Massachusetts Avenue. An abstract sculpture that looks like an Alexander Calder tribute sits on a bridge in the Canal District. A towering blue and green obelisk marks the north end of Broad Ripple on College Avenue. The works aren’t part of an elaborate conspiracy by a renegade public artist. They’re the result of two years of careful planning by the city’s Cultural Development Commission. In 2003, the commission designated five areas of the…

Roll the cameras: State cranks up efforts to court film industry under new task force

North Carolina offers a 15-percent tax credit to filmmakers to help offset production costs. The credit recently helped sway a national retailer to shoot an in-store commercial there instead of in Indiana. While the $600,000 production hardly compares to a multimillion-dollar motion picture, losing it was a big deal for local companies that didn’t get the work. Holli Hanley of Grand Illusion Lighting Inc. in Zionsville, which rents lighting equipment to production companies, lamented the loss. “Everyone in the entire…

Arts group gets serious: Harrison Center mounts its first-ever capital campaign

Perhaps you’d find a live “elf” directing visitors from inside an inflatable lawn Christmas decoration. Maybe young women dressed in wedding gowns would be playing basketball in the gym. Or possibly, one of the featured works of art would be a 3-foot-tall crocheted cigar in a display case, made with yarn, wood, screws and “six cans of cheap beer,” according to its creator, Paul Baumgarten. But behind the scenes of controlled mayhem, Harrison Center Executive Director Joanna Taft and the…

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Let the private sector operate the Toll Road

Watching the tug and pull of partisan politics in full bloom in our state capital brings to mind that old saying about making laws and making sausage. You don’t really want to see how either one happens. But as our elected leaders posture and fight over the table scraps of new revenue that can realistically be said to be squeezed out of what has historically been an overcommitted state budget, another, more hopeful, vision comes to mind. It’s a vision…