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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Improving state economy defies simple measures

The replacement of the Indiana Department of Commerce with the privately directed Indiana Economic Development Corp. has been mostly a non-issue in this election season. While most of the fist-pounding, face-reddening rhetoric has been directed at such meaty issues as how long we wait when we go to the BMV office once a year and whether or not we should reset our clocks each spring and fall, the issue of how we go about reinventing and reinvigorating the economy that…

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St. Francis looks to fill hospice care void: Hospital plans 16-bed facility for south campus

St. Francis Hospital and Health Centers wants to raise $15 million to add an inpatient hospice to its growing campus on the south side of Indianapolis. The free-standing hospice could house as many as 32 beds for terminally ill patients. Even though most hospice patients receive care in their own homes, hospital officials see the project as a chance to fill a market need and reinforce their system’s Franciscan values. “People get caught up, I think, in the definition of…

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Ivy Tech to host SBDC: State hopes partnership will end instability, help local center shine as consultant

The Central Indiana Small Business Development Center hasn’t exactly been a pillar of stability that budding entrepreneurs seeking its advice could emulate. The entity, part of a statewide network of 11 such centers that counsel fledgling businesses, has struggled to find a permanent home-and a capable director-for five years. But state officials, eager to end the strife, have stepped in to lead a reorganization they hope will return the center to prominence within the local small-business community. For starters, Ivy…

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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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ATA flies closer to black: Airline doing better, but doesn’t plan to resume local service

ATA, the incredibly shrinking airline that once was the busiest at Indianapolis International Airport, appears to have shrunk in a favorable category-its financial losses. The Indianapolis-based carrier that ended scheduled service here in January had a loss of $5.27 million in the second quarter, according to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Now privately owned, ATA Holdings Corp. lost $26.3 million during the second quarter in its domestic operations, according to DOT. But it earned $21 million in…

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SPORTS Bill Benner: Little-noticed Horizon League prospers and grows

SPORTS Little-noticed Horizon League prospers and grows From his fifth-floor office in Pan Am Plaza, Horizon League Commissioner Jon LeCrone has a view of the Indianapolis skyline. His only wish is that the city would look back. Not at him. At his nine-member league, which will grow to 10 next July when upstate Valparaiso joins Butler in the league’s Indiana contingent. Alas, it’s a prime example of good news making no news. Or of the media, local and otherwise, determining…

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Volatile markets aren’t as whacky as they seem:

Even in a going-nowhere year like 2006, the ups and downs of the financial markets strike a lot of people as too much. Stock prices, in particular, are constantly described as volatile-swinging in arcs far wider than economic conditions could possibly warrant. Look at emerging markets stocks, which jumped 25 percent in the first few months of this year, then gave the whole gain back again in less than six weeks. These stocks from economies on the frontiers of capitalism,…

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BEHIND THE NEWS GREG ANDREWS gandrews@ibj.com: With Finish Line stumbling, analysts weigh sale, LBO

Finish Line Inc.’s fortunes have dimmed so dramatically in recent months that analysts are raising a range of ideas that once seemed farfetched to boost the slumping stock. Among them: taking the company private through a leveraged buyout, or selling it to a larger retailer. The athletic-shoe industry is abuzz that an LBO for Finish Line’s struggling rival, New York-based Foot Locker Inc., is already afoot. That company last month hired a financial adviser, just weeks after Women’s Wear Daily…

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BRIAN WILLIAMS Commentary: Downtown needs a grand, artful facility

On Sept. 1, 45 competitors from nearly 20 countries arrived for the seventh quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Through the middle of September at venues around the city, these talented men and women will compete for one of the richest artistic prizes in the world. In a few short months, the American Pianists Association will undertake its biennial competition for the Cole Porter Jazz Fellowship. Again, a cadre of some of the instrument’s most accomplished American performers will come…

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Cleanup of contamination in store for new Claus site: Sausage shop owner redeveloping brownfield property

It’s 2:30 p.m. on a Tuesday and a steady stream of customers continues to patronize Claus’ German Sausage and Meat Market on East South Street. By March, however, the butcher shop likely will have abandoned its longtime home for a new building on South Shelby Street in Fountain Square. Whether its loyal clientele will follow concerns owner Claus Muth, who purchased the store from relative Gerhard Klemm in 2003 and changed the name from Klemm’s in April. “Since [the new…

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Young architect honored for design of orphanage: Cluster complex plan wins international competition

Chunsheh Teo is a driven man. The 28-year-old sometimes works long days as an architectural graduate at Ratio Architects Inc. and spends his off time building furniture for the home he and his wife recently purchased in Irvington. On a recent weekend, he built a new fence for the yard. Oh, and he also enters international design competitions in his down time-about seven in the last three years. “It’s just kind of a fun thing to do,” Teo said. At…

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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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IPL seeks to expand green plans

Electric customers would gain new payment options and more access to “green power,” and Indianapolis Power & Light would have more opportunities to profit, under a plan the utility filed Aug. 23 with state regulators.

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Racing toward a new type of learning center: Decatur, Panther team up on educational facility

Mention a career in motorsports to most youngsters and they imagine whizzing around the track like NASCAR’s Tony Stewart or Sam Hornish Jr., points leader of the Indianapolis Racing League. But a partnership between Indianapolisbased Panther Racing LLC and Decatur Township Schools wants to introduce students to more practical professions within the sport by providing the resources in a hands-on learning environment. The result is the Panther Education Center, set to open next fall near the racing team’s headquarters at…

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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Businesses should tap Indiana’s ‘invisible work force’

Based on an analysis of biographical accounts, both Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison appear to have been challenged by dyslexia, a reading and comprehension developmental disorder that can be severe. Few today would question the astonishing contributions these individuals made to humanity. Despite the severity of the challenges that some of these children face, many adapt and conquer, entering the Indianapolis community as successful working adults. There are many stories of achievement about children exceeding expectations, from a teenager with…

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INVESTING: Mexicans turn pro-market, Americans socialist

Hola! I feel like speaking Spanish today. I want to go down to Mexico and protest with my socialist brothers the outrages of the freeelection process. There’s a lot of wealth we Americans didn’t create but want to take, and that’s hard to do when a bunch of capitalists are running Mexico. It has been a long struggle for Mexico. Decades of anti-capitalist governments and first-rate corruption have created problems that will take generations to work out. But the election…

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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Low-impact development likely to make a big impact

Every time Indiana experiences one of its summer cloudbursts, the rainfall sets into motion one of a real estate development’s most expensive and least appreciated systems. As rain hits the ground, it quickly collects into wellengineered courses to swales and gutters, through pipes and culverts and into detention ponds. Flowing around, over and through the land that once absorbed it, the water is efficiently collected and conveyed off the site. In other words, gather it up and drain it off….

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Dispute over retail at Hamilton Proper boils over: Some homeowners bucking HDG Mansur management

Tensions between the developer of Hamilton Proper and some of its homeowners spilled into public view at the Fishers Town Council meeting Aug. 7, with the council president becoming so agitated he broke his gavel. Another councilor, Charles White, opened the meeting by complaining about the council’s July 17 decision to reject an application by HDG Mansur, the developer of Hamilton Proper, to build an 11-acre retail project on the periphery of the subdivision. White had been absent for that…

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Six sites named ‘Shovel Ready’: State program designed to speed permit process for fast-track developers

State officials have added another arrow to their quiver of economic-development incentives meant to attract companies to Indiana. A new pilot program, known as Shovel Ready, certifies land that can be rapidly developed. The aim is to make the properties more attractive to companies by cutting the time it takes to navigate the permitting process. “The ability to expedite a company’s development will make us more competitive than perhaps we have been in the past,” said Chris Pfaff, director of…

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Architectural firm embraces solar panels

The architectural firm Schmidt Associates Inc. wants to persuade clients to build greener buildings. So a couple of weeks ago–during a heat wave and under scorching sun, nonetheless–workers erected a solarpanel awning in front of the company’s 320 E. Vermont St. offices.

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