KB Home Inc. probably will be the only national builder to abandon the Indianapolis-area market, local observers say. Dallas-based Centex Corp., Pulte Homes Inc. of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and Beazer Homes USA, headquartered in Atlanta, are even more likely to stay now that KB is leaving, said Steve Lains, CEO of the Builders Association of […]
More bad news on the housing front, as KB Home says it’s bailing on Indianapolis. How big of a loss is it? KB entered the market in 2004 with…
KB Home Inc. is pulling out of the Indianapolis market, a spokesman for the Los Angeles-based homebuilder confirmed this afternoon. The company was the fourth-biggest homebuilder in the Indianapolis area in 2005, ranked by permits filed, according to IBJ’s Book of Lists. However, in recent quarters the housing slowdown has taken a toll on it […]
I thought I’d explored just about every purpose to which computer hardware and software would lend themselves, but Neil Taflinger of Intake magazine tossed me a new one in the May 17 issue. Technology, he says, is a tool for retaining young employees. Could be, I suppose. Taflinger is one of those young employees he talks about, a real Gen X’er, so he might have some insight here. According to Taflinger, Gen X’ers partly judge any company they work for…
A BBC online story from November got me thinking about funny looks. I get those a lot, and not just because most mornings I look like a poorly repaired sidewalk. I get them because of the words I use. But I can’t help it. Nobody in technology can help it. When we talk about technology, we always sound like we’re mumbling jargon, even when we’re not. The article (news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6118828.stm) dealt with the frustration workers have with supposedly cool business jargon,…
Home lending might sound like a staid business. But anyone weathering the changes now sweeping through the Indiana mortgage market knows otherwise. Last year, we saw the sale of two huge Indiana-based home lenders-Fort Wayne-based Waterfield Mortgage and Fishers-based Irwin Mortgage. Also sold was Carmel-based Oak Street Mortgage, which not long ago had been a high-flier poised to go public. These weren’t cases of owners cashing out at the top of the market. Quite the contrary. Irwin Mortgage had become…
Harry & Izzy’s, a spinoff to St. Elmo Steak House slated to open in mid-April at Circle Centre mall, is the city’s most anticipated
new restaurant in years–a casual cousin to St. Elmo,
with lunch service and a wider menu, including salads, pastas and pizzas, along with standbys like the famous shrimp cocktail.
St. Elmo Steak House spin-off Harry & Izzy’s won unanimous approval for a liquor permit this morning after Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi withdrew as an investor in the $4 million venture, said Dave Heath, chairman of the state’s Alcohol and Tobacco Commission. Questions arose last week about the legality of Brizzi’s 10-percent stake in […]
Kokomo and Tipton are the only Indiana cities where German automotive companies Daimler-Chrysler and Getrag Corporate Group have applied for air-quality permits to build a transmission factory, according to the Kokomo Tribune. The plant would employ 1,200 to make a fuel-efficient dual wet clutch. A representative of United Auto Workers Local 685 told the newspaper […]
The Web has always been viewed with suspicion by many people, but now it’s become nothing less than the cause of copyright lawsuits against Ellen DeGeneres for letting a guest dance the Electric Slide, against the Girl Scouts for doing the Macarena a satire Web site about Barney the purple dinosaur for making fun of the big guy, and against the online deal-finder site Black Friday for publishing prices from retailer Best Buy. Back in the old days, copyright holders…
Speedy approval of permits makes Indiana more desirable than Ohio for huge dairy farms, according to a company that specializes in settling Dutch dairy farmers in the United States. Vreba-Hoff Dairy Development LLC, based in Wauseon, Ohio, told the Dayton Daily News that Ohio agencies are understaffed. Therefore, Vreba-Hoff applications in Indiana jumped […]
Ivy Tech Community College this month launched a pilot program that allows high school dropouts to earn their diplomas while simultaneously working toward a certificate or associate’s degree in college. Intended to improve the state’s labor pool, and as a lifeline to dropouts facing a dismal life in the earnings underclass, it will first be rolled out in Bloomington, Lafayette and Terre Haute. The Indianapolis campus also will offer the program aimed at those 19 or older, although a date…
A museum in the
works for downtown would feature one of the world’s largest collections of super hero memorabilia, including a Batmobile and
costumes worn by every actor who has played Superman on TV or in the movies.
Fortville-based Genesis Manufacturing makes helmet pads for U.S. troops through Colorado-based Skydex Technologies, which
won a contract this fall with the U.S. Air Force for 120,000 helmet pad kits. Most of the helmets have wound up in Iraq, where
the military has discovered soldiers need something more than Kevlar-lined helmets to survive roadside mines and exploding
Toyotas.
Paul Shoopman put 33 years into Dura Builders Inc. before selling his residential construction firm to national player KB
Home Inc. as the local housing market boomed. Two years later, he’s getting back into the business even as KB and others retrench.
“Nursing’s a lot harder than coaching, I can tell you that,” Keady, 70, said from his Tippecanoe County home, not far from Purdue University where the basketball court in Mackey Arena bears his name. After 25 years on the Purdue sidelines in a storied career that had almost everything except the storybook ending, Keady signed on last year as an assistant coach with the NBA’s Toronto Raptors. This year, Raptors management changed and his contract was not renewed. Just as…
Once upon a time not so long ago, Imax films were nearly synonymous with museums. In Indianapolis and elsewhere, the largeformat movie screens-some as big as the side of an eight-story building-featured 40-minute films that took viewers to exotic places like outer space or the top of Mount Everest, and were usually attached to educational and cultural institutions. But technology that debuted in 2002 is bringing Imax screens to suburbia-including to Noblesville in 2008. Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Goodrich Quality Theaters…
Several Hoosiers are at the forefront of a fledgling effort to deflect a growing barrage of criticism lobbed at retail giant Wal-Mart Stores by organized labor and worker’s rights advocates. The Indiana chapter of the Working Families for Wal-Mart formed earlier this month and includes in its membership local elected officials such as City-County Councilor Ron Gibson and State Rep. Vanessa Summers, D-Indianapolis. The national not-for-profit, which launched a year ago, is backed by the Arkansas-based retailer and also boasts…
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management proposes a change in regulations that could reduce the time it takes to approve air permits for ethanol plants. The change would establish industry-specific control standards for emissions.
Green roofs color the skylines in Chicago, Philadelphia, Toronto and other North American cities, but Hoosiers have to look high and low to find similar examples of the plant-filled building tops in Indianapolis. “Most green roofs [in other cities] are on the tops of existing buildings, where here they are [more likely to be found] above an underground parking garage that you might not even be aware is there,” said Mark Zelonis, director of the gardens and grounds at the…
