ITT Educational Services Inc. and other for-profit schools are facing a maelstrom of financial threats that analysts say could
hurt student recruiting and profit margins–and already has driven stock prices down sharply. ITT shares are off 61 percent
since hitting an all-time high of $131.82 in November.
And in less than five months-if, as we used to say in Center Grove, the Good Lord’s willing and the cricks don’t rise-it no longer will be just that mammoth structure rising between West and Missouri streets. It will be ours, and in that personal pronoun, I mean, sincerely, that Lucas Oil Stadium will belong to all of us, not just residents of Indianapolis and the contiguous counties who have pitched in on the funding, but to all Hoosiers who…
The company that powered Tony Stewart to the 1997 Indy Racing League championship is coming back to open-wheel racing. John Menard confirmed that his Menards chain of hardware superstores will be sponsoring Tony…
in an uncommon move among Indiana manufacturers typically more preoccupied with foreign competition and deteriorating margins,
Knauf Insulation is rebuilding its research and development facility, destroyed in a fire last year, to make it 30 percent
more energy-efficient than a conventional office building of its size.
As we prepared this column at midweek, there still was no certainty about a property tax relief and reform package resulting from the regular session, set to adjourn sine die March 14. While some lawmakers were proclaiming no hope of enacting a package before time expired in the regular session, others were seeing movement toward a plan that was structured largely along the lines of the original package offered by Gov. Mitch Daniels. Democrats altered strategy as the scheduled adjournment…
Vontoo Inc., the Indianapolis startup that’s developing audio marketing messages, has attracted $2 million in private funding. The company was started in 2006 to help bring personalized voice mail messages that can include nuance that’s difficult to convey in an e-mail. A key financial backer is Robert Compton, an angel investor living in the Memphis […]
On the same day this month when high school boys’ basketball teams compete to advance to the state finals, another event showcasing the talents of Indiana’s youth should be just as climactic. Only this contest emphasizes academics over athletics. The three-day Boilermaker Regional at Purdue University that culminates March 15 will host roughly 40 high school robotics programs, including 26 schools from Indiana. Students will apply their engineering and computer programming skills to design and build task-performing machines. The winning…
Indiana Senate Bill 335 is a poorly crafted public policy that fails to reflect the totality of immigration and the societal and economic issues associated with it. Hispanics are the nation’s largest minority group, numbering 47 million. About a quarter of Hispanic adults, roughly 11 million, are unauthorized immigrants. The Pew Hispanic Center estimated Indiana’s unauthorized immigrant population at 65,000, roughly 1 percent of the population. In 2004, 93 percent of unauthorized men age 18-64 were in the labor force,…
We’ve come a long way since the beginning of this legislative session, and lawmakers are edging closer to assembling a property tax reform acceptable to both chambers, both major parties and the governor. Lawmakers faced competing pressures from constituents, the governor, business interests, schools and local governments, and citizen groups as they tackled the issue, but they resolved to labor with a minimum of partisanship. Of course, they frequently make the same pledge when dealing with major issues, but an…
The Indianapolis Airport Authority board this month approved spending up to $8.8 million to help fund construction of a hotel connected to the midfield terminal set to debut Oct. 28. But delays in finalizing a deal with developer Mansur Real Estate Services means the $50-million-plus Westin will not be ready for guests until August 2009 at the earliest. The airport board picked Indianapolis-based Mansur to build the hotel nearly a year ago. “We’re still talking about what it’s going to…
Visitors in Indianapolis for the Urban Forum in April might patronize Jockamo Upper Crust Pizza in Irvington not only to sample the food but also the success of a neighborhood business district revitalization program. The pizzeria benefited from an effort called Fostering Commercial Urban Strategies, or FOCUS, through a $16,000 facade grant from the Indianapolis chapter of the Local Initiatives Support Corp. Indianapolis is one of 30 cities boasting LISC chapters. Nationally, they invested more than $1 billion in low-income…
Less than a month after starting a job she didn’t know she wanted, Indiana Black Expo CEO Tanya Bell has big plans for the nation’s oldest and largest group of its kind. Bell wants to diversify the statewide organization’s revenue stream and expand its already-impressive roster of more than 100 corporate sponsors. Doing that will mean raising awareness of the year-round programs that have been overshadowed by IBE’s two signature events: its annual Summer Celebration and Circle City Classic football…
If the introduction of modern streetcars to one West Coast city can be replicated here, Indianapolis would see new, higher-density
housing and related retail and restaurants shadowing the line. Fallow areas crossed by the tracks would become fertile for
new investment. At least that was the case in Portland, Ore., a city mesmerizing to Indianapolis civic leaders, who last month
formed Downtown Indianapolis Streetcar Corp. They risk being run out of town on a rail: a streetcar line will cost…
Humane Society’s barking honored The Humane Society for Hamilton County was among eight animal-rescue groups in the nation to win a national marketing contest by Maddie’s Fund, an Alameda, Calif.-based pet rescue foundation. The Noblesville-based group was awarded $15,000 for pioneering efforts to place disfigured, blind, deaf, unattractive or shy pets and those with medical […]
For years, the Indianapolis not-for-profit once known as Bands of America built a reputation for organizing a series of regional marching band competitions that culminates in a national march-off here each November. In 2006, the organization broadened its scope through a merger with an East Coast advocacy group, marrying performance-based evidence that music education has value with research-backed efforts to keep school programs around. Now Music for All’s research is making waves nationally, and the organization just landed $495,000 to…
The prospect of urban sprawl might swallow up even those agencies tasked with planning for sprawl’s consequences. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization is exploring a merger with Anderson’s MPO, according to the Indianapolis agency’s 2008 Unified Planning Work Program report. “The rapid growth of the Northeast Corridor has blurred the boundaries between the Anderson and Indianapolis MPOs; a joint committee is currently exploring whether consolidation is warranted,” states the report. MPOs are virtually invisible agencies to the public even though…
Arizona residents’ willingness to pay higher taxes may have a strong impact on Indianapolis’ effort to land the 2012 Super Bowl. Funding from Arizona’s corporate community paid for 80 percent of the host city’s Super Bowl bill this year. But…
It could be another Prozac moment. Eli Lilly and Co. is pitching its next star antidepressant drug, Cymbalta, for approval to treat the poorly understood pain of fibromyalgia. Regulators OK’d a drug specifically for fibromyalgia for the first time in June. The approval of Pfizer Inc.’s Lyrica sparked hope in fibromyalgia patients and advocates that more doctors will come to understand and diagnose the tricky condition, now that they have a medicine to treat it. That’s what happened 20 years…
Three months after launching an initiative to boost drug-development firms in Indiana, officials at BioCrossroads have written
a report that attempts to show in detail the vast market opportunity they see.
The first investment by Clarian Health Ventures is in an Indianapolis startup that is developing technology for spotting cancer cells. The new fund started by Clarian joined four other venture firms in pumping $6.25 million into CS-Keys Inc. CS-Keys was launched by Indiana University School of Medicine researchers. Leading the investment was Triathlon Medical Ventures, […]
