Worldwide, about 57 million people will die this year. Few will make headlines like Pope John Paul II and Terri Schiavo did. Many will die as did Kianna Rowe Karnes of Indianapolis, attended by family but abused or neglected by the health profession. Karnes was 44 when she died a few weeks ago from kidney cancer. She was not brain dead. She was not at the end of a long life, but in the rich, middle years where she could…
A partnership headed by Paul Kite has ambitious plans for a mixed-use development featuring midrise condominium towers and retail space on the last undeveloped corner of 86th Street and Keystone Avenue. A proposal from PK Capital LLC, Kite’s partnership, calls for more than 180 condos and about 60,000 square feet of retail space on the north side of 86th Street between Haverstick Road and Keystone Avenue. The 10-acre property lies just south of Our Lady of Peace Cemetery and a…
Developers of a small parcel of property on the northwest side are creating a courtyard of quaint shops that will feature an offshoot of the Café Patachou boutique restaurant. Daniel Altman and his wife, Colleen, bought the piece of land at the corner of 51st Street and Michigan Road last year and opened the upscale Catalpa Antiques & Objects in the historic home that sits on the property. Once completed, the Catalpa Place development will include five shops within a…
Flush with $15 million, Symphony Bank is nearly ready to take the stage. A group of nearly 200 investors contributed the money necessary to underwrite the new bank, which will be at 3737 E. 96th St., just south of the border between Hamilton and Marion counties. Symphony Bancorp President and CEO Steve Tolen said dedication to customer service will differentiate his de novo bank from its stiff competition. “When we looked at the marketplace, we felt while we may be…
Two years ago, Lauth Property Group Inc.’s Intech Park was arguably the most prominent sign of central Indiana’s soft office market. The northwest-side park’s largest buildings, Intech One and Two, had entire floors vacant and awaiting completion. Acterna LLC was pulling out of its 140,000-square-foot building, a retreat symbolic of the technology bust’s effect on the larger suburban office market. Today, helped by a robust investment market and Intech’s recent state designation as a certified technology park, Lauth hopes the…
If money can’t buy love, as the Beatles sang 40 years ago, neither can it make a startup company prosperous. While David Becker and David Doyle are no John Lennon or Paul McCartney, their wisdom certainly makes sense for locally based Inception LLC. That’s the consultancy, incubator and venture capital firm they founded in November 2000. “Entrepreneurs always think that, if they had money, they would be successful [right away],” Doyle said. “That’s not always the case. There are very…
A federal appeals court last month issued a ruling that gave affiliates of the Simon family some of what they wanted-a larger ownership stake in Mall of America. But the three-judge panel also gave them a lashing over dealings with their partner in the Minnesota mega mall, the Ghermezian brothers of Canada. “This case presents the worst kind of self-dealing and subterfuge” by Simon affiliates, the court wrote. Ouch. At issue was a deal Simon Property Group Inc., the family’s…
The much-ballyhooed battle about funding for a new stadium and expanded convention center downtown appears to be over, but it will be some time before the victors get the spoils. Although state lawmakers authorized a series of tax increases to pay for the $900 million project, plenty of work remains to realize the promised payoffs-increased convention business, additional development and a shot at hosting the Super Bowl. “I don’t expect to see any of that until construction starts,” said Indianapolis…
Will your company’s traditional pension plan be there when you retire, and what can you do now to prepare for the possibility that it might not be there? The last few years have seen the implosion of several major corporate pension plans, particularly in the airline and steel industries. Hundreds of other companies have reported to the federal government that if their pension plan ended today, they wouldn’t have enough money to pay their future obligations. But there are steps…
When new San Francisco 49ers coach Mike Nolan was told he couldn’t wear a suit and tie on the sidelines because of apparel manufacturer Reebok’s contract with the National Football League, some said Tom Landry and George Halas rolled over in their graves. To be sure, the late NFL coaches known for their suits and ties wouldn’t appreciate the mandate from Reebok, which manufactures much of its licensed goods on Indianapolis’ east side and has suffered a public relations black…
Robert E. Koffenberger joined Eli Lilly and Co. as a salesman in 1939. By the time he retired in 1974, he was one of the company’s highest-level executives, a member of the board of directors-and an immensely wealthy man. Now, 28 years after the Indianapolis executive’s death, a fight over that fortune has split his grandchildren. One of the eight has launched a court fight here charging that his brother and sister-in-law took advantage of the cloudy mind of Koffenberger’s…
The U.S. manufacturing industry has begun rebounding from its economic swoon, but some industry experts think more manufacturers must become more efficient and eliminate waste if they are to compete in the current global climate. While the Manufacturers Alliance, an Arlington, Va.-based business and public policy research group, projected manufacturing growth of 3.4 percent this year and 3 percent in 2006, big challenges remain. One growing problem is the so-called shrinkage factor, defined in manufacturing as the percentage by which…
Duke Realty Corp. has quietly made bundles for investors the past five years. But you wouldn’t know it from the tone of recent analyst reports on the Indianapolis-based company, one of the nation’s largest industrial and office developers. “We [compare] Duke’s investment case to that of a large ship, since we believe that it would take the company time to gradually turn its performance around on a course to improved results,” wrote Prudential Equity Group’s James Sullivan. “There is virtually…
The seemingly undersized, undermatched independent advertising agency Young & Laramore has found itself in the national spotlight competing for a multimillion-dollar account with some of the industry’s largest national players. The Indianapolis-based firm best known for its award-winning ad campaigns for Steak n Shake, Goodwill Industries and most recently Stanley Steemer, is one of four finalists vying for the lucrative Lands’ End broadcast creative contract. Young & Laramore’s competitors for the Lands’ End account are Omnicom Group’s BBDO and Downtown…
When it comes to charity poker in Indiana, players and organizers alike need to know more than when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em. They also need to know whether they’re walking-or running-away from a legal game. Poker’s growing popularity has given rise to a veritable jackpot for aficionados nationwide. In Indiana, where wagering is only allowed at state-sanctioned riverboat casinos, many of those who want more than a home game are finding action at tournaments that benefit…
Sometimes they do it for economic reasons. Or perhaps they don’t want their children to be raised by baby sitters. Whatever the case, some couples find it makes more sense for the dad to be a stay-at-home parent. And sometimes-as with the couples in this story-that decision has helped enable the moms’ careers to soar. Debra Minott, director of the Indiana Personnel Department, was working for Eli Lilly and Co. in San Diego when she had her second child in…
When all exports are considered, by air and sea, China is Indiana’s eighthlargest destination, growing 25 percent last year to $294.4 million, according to the Center for International Business Education and Research at Indiana University. Air cargo to China is 10 times greater than a decade ago, Michael Ducker, an executive vice president of FedEx, said in a presentation about China. Airport officials won’t say whom they’ve courted in the cargo realm. “We’re casting a pretty broad net,” said BAA…
But trustees currently have a higher priority: Let the dust settle. “It’s only been a couple of days,” said Rose-Hulman Chairman Robert Bright. “Nothing’s been established for sure yet.” It took the Terre Haute engineering school 10 months to find and narrow the field of 60 candidates that produced Midgley-nearly the length of his presidential stint. Most expect the search for his successor to last at least as long. In the meantime, Rose-Hulman has a more pressing task. It must…
Like vultures circling a lone man in the desert, local developers and home builders are jockeying to swoop in and take 413 acres of prime Carmel land when owner Earlham College gives it up following its settlement with Conner Prairie. But Earlham, recognizing the prominence of the last large undeveloped tract in eastern Carmel, isn’t going gently. Interested parties-more than two dozen, at last count-will be required to undergo a formal proposal process before one can feast on the farmland….
ATA Airlines Inc. has tapped aircraft repair firm AAR Corp. to refurbish up to 14 older Boeing 737s joining its fleet rather than using its own maintenance operation barely a mile away. The Indianapolis-based airline also is considering a plan to abandon its maintenance facility for a smaller location at Indianapolis International Airport, according to a source involved in the leasing discussions. The bankrupt carrier indicated in a court hearing last week that it would not reject its current maintenance…
