We at the Sunrise assume it was a slow news day. We are but a small, familyowned restaurant wondering why we merited such a writeup in the [Feb. 14] IBJ. The Sunrise Cafe here at 116th and Meridian was started in 1988 and is owned by Lisa and Jim Horsfield. We also started the Keystone store in 1985 with Scott Horsfield (owner of the Sunrise Cafe at 116th and Cumberland Road) and Ralph Webb (owner of the 86th and Keystone…
The City-County Council’s handling of a proposed smoking ban has implications well beyond Indianapolis, to neighbors poised to adopt their own laws but watching the outcome in the state’s most populous city. If Indianapolis doesn’t enact a smoking ban, or adopts one that’s politically unpalatable to neighboring cities and counties, those communities might adopt a confusing variety of laws, observers on both sides of the debate say. They say a lack of uniformity could even spawn a migration of bar…
Indiana is one of only a few states in which individuals cannot agree to waive coverage for pre-existing conditions in order to get at least some type of health insurance. That could change this year, however. Dueling bills in front of the Legislature have passed out of the House and Senate and are being considered by the opposite chamber. Rep. Gerald Torr, R-Carmel, authored one of the measures and is confident some form of his legislation will pass. The object…
As president of The Dura Cos. Inc., Paul Shoopman was responsible for a 155-employee company that brought in $75 million in revenue in 2003 and built as many as 700 homes a year in Marion and the surrounding counties. Last year, Shoopman won an Ernst & Young national Entrepreneur of the Year award and sold his company to publicly traded California-based KB Home. This year, he’s starting over. Shoopman, 51, opened Indiana Land Development Co. in early January. From his…
Two former Galyan’s Trading Co. Inc. stores are set to find a new life in furniture. Ashley Furniture HomeStores will enter the market by occupying former Galyan’s stores in Greenwood and in Village Park Plaza in Carmel. The Greenwood store will have about 80,000 square feet and the Carmel store will be slightly smaller at 66,000 square feet, according to plans filed with the state. The HomeStores sell furnishings made by Arcadia, Wis.-based Ashley Furniture Industries Inc., but are independently…
Oak Street Financial Services Inc., the fast-growing Carmelbased mortgage seller, has called off its initial public offering. “We still feel we’re in a growth phase,” said Oak Street spokesman Joe Poulos. “But some things have been scaled back, such as the IPO.” Oak Street filed initial IPO paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission last April, outlining plans to raise up to $150 million from investors. But SEC documents show Oak Street withdrew its registration request Feb. 1 One of…
One of the nation’s most successful bankers has returned to Indiana. After four years spent spearheading the turnaround of deeply troubled City National Bank in Charleston, W.Va., Jerry Francis took the helm at Kokomobased First National Bank & Trust Feb. 9. Francis is best known locally from his days as president of People’s Bank Corp. He left Indianapolis in 2001 after Fifth Third Bancorp bought People’s for $228 million. But his name is recognized across the nation thanks to the…
A longtime favorite spot to conduct business over breakfast on the far-north side will close if plans to sell the building that houses Sunrise Café come to fruition. Locally based Meridian Asset Development has the café building and a surrounding 2-1/2-acre lot at 11450 N. Meridian St. under contract. The seller is an Omaha, Neb.-based trust that owns it and a nearby office building. If the sale closes as expected in the coming weeks, Meridian Asset plans to raze the…
Kathy Carrier’s dad was angry when she left a lucrative job at a Fortune 500 company to start her own firm. But four years later, when she won an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, he told his daughter: “Clearly your vision for yourself was greater than the one I had for you.” In less than seven years, Carrier, 46, has built her Fort Wayne-based information technology writing and training firm, Briljent LLC, into a business with annual…
Four of the 10 largest environmental penalties levied against Indiana companies in 2004 involved air pollution violations, an area of regulation likely to come under renewed focus after the first-ever “fine particulate” health warning was issued last week for Marion and five other counties. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management, which sounded the alarm, assessed $1.2 million in air pollution penalties last year-almost half of the $2.4 million in 1999, according to state records. The decrease in air penalty amounts…
Amid all the resignations and terminations in state government recently, at least one holdover appointed by the previous administration is remaining on the job. And small-business advocates could not be more pleased. David Dorff, whom former Gov. Joe Kernan tabbed in July to lead the state’s new Office of Small Business Advocacy, received word from Gov. Mitch Daniels in early January that he would remain on staff. Kernan unveiled the agency last summer as part of a series of initiatives…
A strong leasing year in the Meridian corridor Class A office submarket led Duke Realty Corp. to break ground on a speculative office building, but local experts don’t expect other developers to follow Duke’s lead anytime soon. Site work has begun on Nine Parkwood Crossing, the final building in Indianapolis-based Duke’s project on 96th Street east of Meridian Street. Completion is set for January 2006. Minnesota-based American Family Insurance will occupy 45,000 square feet of the building, moving its offices…
Browning Investments Inc. has nearly 100 acres under contract in the rapidly growing Michigan Road retail corridor. The locally based developer hasn’t yet cemented plans for the land, but they could include purely retail or a mixeduse development with multifamily, flex/office and retail components, said Vice President of Development James W. Browning. Most retail on the site would likely be highway-oriented, such as hotels or outlets of national chain restaurants, he said. The parcel, under contract from various owners, lies…
But Galyan’s name still carries weight like one of his old store’s GoLite Gust backpacks. Galyan-thesalesman-turned-fund-raiser managed to attract 30 outdoorsmen last week to dine in a bistro that carved vegetables into unmanly shapes. Then he convinced them to fork over cash to help protect 40 million acres of land-in southwest Alaska. “I’m Pat Galyan, of former Galyan’s fame,” he told an audience that ranged from the CEO of a window company to a top-dog lawyer who told his tablemates…
Overshadowed by the $974 million midfield terminal project is a potential economic development bonanza: the reuse of the existing terminal and surrounding land at Indianapolis International Airport. More than 120 acres along Interstate 465 that today hold parked cars might someday house hotels, shipping operations or even a light-rail station after the midfield terminal opens in about three years. Another 54 acres representing the terminal and its immediate surroundings will be available for aviation uses from air freight to corporate…
Hoosier-based companies registered five initial public offerings last year, a robust number considering not a single Indiana business went public in 2003. The uptick could signal the state’s economy, as well as the nation’s, is on the mend. Nationally, 233 companies raised $43 billion collectively to go public on the major U.S. stock exchanges in 2004, a 195-percent increase in the number of IPOs over 2003. And the performance could be even stronger this year, said Richard Peterson, a market…
The nation’s largest parking operator is complaining that Indianapolis International Airport canceled its joint-venture contract and handed the business to the local half of the venture without seeking competing proposals. Nashville, Tenn.-based Central Parking Corp. said that, given the chance, it would have offered the airport more to manage the Premier Business Class parking lot than its now-former partner, Global Parking System of Carmel, did. A counteroffer from Central came after the Indianapolis Airport A u t h o r…
Indiana’s new governor will obviously have the opportunity to shape a new government and plans to do so. But what has been unsaid about what the new structure may look like is how our assumptions about government and the delivery of government services have changed so radically since the last party change in the office in 1988, and even since the last election. The growth of the Internet and public acceptance of doing business online has Hoosiers now expecting that…
A victor has emerged from the Monument Circle chocolate war, and the spoils go to the Indiana-based warrior. Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory closed its store at 28 Monument Circle Dec. 31, leaving South Bend Chocolate Co.’s Chocolate Café next door as the Circle’s sole sweets source. The franchise’s closing is one of several changes afoot in the downtown restaurant scene. Coming attractions include an Oregonbased seafood chain and the return of local favorite Eh! Formaggio, which is shopping for a…
Attorneys for Conseco Inc. have a new target in their legal assault a g a i n s t f o r m e r C E O S t e p h e n Hilbert. It’s Haverstick Consulting Inc., the Carmelbased company Hilbert now leads. In court papers filed last week in Hamilton County, Conseco attorneys charge that Hilbert and his wife, Tomisue, transferred millions of dollars into Haverstick in recent years but did not receive stock of equal…
