Articles

Malls’ redevelopment attracts familiar names: Borders, AMC Theatres among first tenants identified

A mix of familiar stores and upscale retailers will be moving into the nowvacant L.S. Ayres space at Greenwood Park and Castleton Square malls, which owner Simon Property Group Inc. is turning into small-scale lifestyle centers. The open-air developments, which will be similar in design to Carmel’s Clay Terrace, have attracted a host of major retailers, including Barnes & Noble, Borders and AMC Theatres. Smaller specialty shops and sit-down restaurants also are planned. Barnes & Noble will be going in…

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Kite, Mansur, White pitch airport hotel

Three developers are vying for the chance to build a four-story, 250- to 300-room hotel connected to the new $974 million midfield terminal and garage at the Indianapolis International Airport.

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INVESTING: For investors, a world of opportunity awaits in Singapore

Westerners have been dreaming about the riches of the Far East for centuries. Christopher Columbus didn’t set out to discover America. He was looking for a faster route to India and China. More than 500 years later, the dream is not completely fulfilled, but riches can still be had, as long as you have some to begin with. I just returned from Singapore. This tiny nation-state is the most densely populated country on earth, and it is smack dab in…

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Noblesville mega-mall begins lining up retailers: Area brokers say space is likely to lease well

J.C. Penney, Best Buy and Bed Bath & Beyond plan to open stores in the $100 million open-air mall Simon Property Group Inc. and a partner are planning to build in Noblesville, retail brokers say. In addition, Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Goodrich Quality Theaters Inc. is in preliminary talks to open a cinema in the project, owner Bob Goodrich confirmed. Simon and another Indianapolis-based developer, Gershman Brown & Associates, announced plans for the nearly 1-million-square-foot Hamilton Towne Centre a year ago….

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NOTIONS: Dear philanthropist: Make me a daydream believer

Last month, I picked up my boys in Fort Wayne, drove north on Interstate 69, hooked a left at Interstate 94, and got off at the Portage, Mich., exit. There, we whiled away the weekend at a family reunion. The grownups ate too much, caught up on gossip and puttered around the lake in the speedboat. The teenagers, whom we rarely saw, did X-Box battle in the basement. On Sunday, after the kids had surfaced for lunch and the grandparents…

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BEHIND THE NEWS: A Marsh without Marshes? Expect family to exit soon

Marsh Supermarkets Inc. has filed hundreds of pages of documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission in recent weeks, but none gets to the crux of the matter: Will a Marsh remain atop Marsh Supermarkets if Boca Raton, Fla.-based Sun Capital Partners completes its $88 million buyout of the Fishers-based company? Marsh spokeswoman Myra Borshoff Cook said executives haven’t been asked to step down so far. “They won’t know anything until the deal closes,” she said. But keeping a Marsh…

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Housing bubble on hold

The inventory of central Indiana homes for sale is piling up, but the backlog so far hasn’t caused prices to fall, according to experts and industry statistics.

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Some call on tradition of burying St. Joseph statue to help sell homes:

Real estate agents pushing to keep homes moving in a slowing market are increasingly looking for divine intervention. Local religious supply stores say sales are up for 4-inch-tall plastic figurines of St. Joseph. Some Catholics believe that burying the statues in a yard helps sell a house. St. Joseph statues have always sold well, but they’ve moved even faster in recent months, said Beth Kuczkowski, president of the Village Dove Inc., with stores in Broad Ripple, Fishers and on the…

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Mayor says condo plan for arena site needs more retail

When Mayor Bart Peterson announced Aug. 31 that the efforts of a partnership to build condominium towers on the former Market Square Arena site had failed, he gave his administration 60 days to put together another deal. Peterson’s vision: Hold onto the concept of a residential tower, but add “significantly more retail.”

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PAN founder focuses on another IT venture: BubbleUp aims to standardize musicians’ Web sites

It didn’t take David Pfenninger long to get back into the game. Just months after selling Carmel-based Internet-test provider Performance Assessment Network Inc. in April for $75 million to St. Louis-based TALX Corp., Pfenninger is betting on another Internet venture: an online music marketing and management startup called BubbleUp. Pfenninger initially remained part of PAN’s local management team after the acquisition, but stepped down this summer, retaining a role as a consultant. “I thought it was time to make a…

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Firm sees opportunity where banks see risk: Oak Street has big hopes for insurance agency loans

Bankers like to see plenty of collateral when they underwrite loans. Insurance agents don’t have many hard assets to show them. Free toasters won’t smooth over this credit dilemma. But the leaders of the Carmel-based Oak Street companies boast they can. And they’re poised to capitalize with a fast-growing specialty lending firm. “The first line of our vision statement says we’ll build a long-term sustainable financial-services firm,” said Oak Street Chairman Steven Alonso. “It’s our strategy to diversify.” Founded in…

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NOTIONS: A travel dispatch from somewhere over the rainbow

The sun is setting, the pavement damp, and dark clouds dance across the San Juan Mountains as we turn onto U.S. Highway 550 and drive north toward Durango. As if there weren’t enough beauty in this peak-filled paradise, Nature’s earlyevening sideshow features a fully arced double rainbow, quite the welcome sign to a late-summer vacation. I suppose you could write off a double rainbow as a mere meteorological phenomenon. I suppose I could, too. But it’s more fun to wonder…

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Pepsi considering mammoth warehouse on west side: Sources say firm’s been scouting sites since spring

A firm representing PepsiCo Inc. has been scouting sites on Indianapolis’ west side for a mammoth warehouse and distribution facility, and sources said the beverage giant is leaning toward a site near its Gatorade bottling plant. Local real estate brokers said Chris Clayton, a broker with the Cleveland office of Dallas-based Staubach Co., visited sites and put out a request for proposals for the project in early April, calling for 1 million square feet of industrial space with the possibility…

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Market Square development deadline looming

Rival developers are dusting off plans for the former Market Square Arena site now that the partnership the city chose for the project appears on the verge of missing the Aug. 31 deadline to buy the land.

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Lauth plans huge business park

Lauth Property Group is working to complete the purchase of 550 acres it has under contract at the northeast corner of Interstate 70 and State Road 39, one interchange west of Plainfield. Lauth plans to build 7.5-million-square-foot industrial park, dubbed Westpoint Business Park.

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Woman sets sights on freedom: Disability isn’t keeping shop owner from goal

Two doors opened for Pam Evans on Aug. 5-one to her own clothing store and the other to her independence. The Cherry Shop represents both to Evans, who lost most of her sight over the course of a weekend in 1998 to a genetic eye disease called angioid streaks. Left with only her peripheral vision, she also lost her career in real estate and corporate sales. After a period of depression, Evans decided she wouldn’t lose it all. “I felt…

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Putting a spin on 911: Law-enforcement agencies embrace reverse system

Langsenkamp, CEO of Sigma Micro Corp. in Indianapolis, began conducting research on the patented Reverse 911 Interactive Community Notification System in 1990. The technology, however, didn’t hit the market en masse until a decade later. Today, roughly 350 law enforcement agencies in the United States and Canada, including those in Carmel and Beech Grove, use it to blast warnings to residents. “It was the first system that ever allowed people to dial phone numbers and deliver messages based on the…

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Political upstart unloads auto dealership

Eric Dickerson, the Republican trying to unseat Julia Carson in the 7th congressional District, plans to sell his north-side Buick dealership to Ed Martin Automotive Group as early as next month. But the dealership could become a campaign liability even if it’s sold.

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VanAusdall to auction off city block

Local office equipment distributor VanAusdall & Farrar Inc. is putting an entire city block on North Meridian Street up for auction, a move that could spur development in a corridor real estate experts say is ripe for activity. The three-acre property is between 12th and 13th streets.

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