Once you’ve lived in New Orleans, you never really leave. A part of you stays on. You don’t feel quite whole again except when you return. Then it’s like regaining an appendage you had learned to live without, but suddenly realize how much you have missed. Transfixed by events there over the past month, I have been missing that part of me I left behind in 1996 when I drove a U-Haul north after three years as a reporter and…
All my life, wellmeaning people have tried to get me interested in chess. It’s not like I don’t know the game; I do. It’s just that it bores me. I tell them I’ll take up chess when the rules are changed to allow the queen to conspire with the bishops to have the knights assassinate the king. Most such games bore me. Card games, even poker, seem insipid. There’s nothing at stake but money, after all. Logic puzzles leave me…
Renovation plans for City Market intended to boost sales at the downtown landmark have some tenants concerned about what it will cost them. In early January, the market’s management expects to begin work on $350,000 worth of lighting and flooring improvements in the historic main hall. Tenants will be permanently moved, with preparedfood stands along the perimeter of the building and retail stands in the center. And stands will sport a uniform look. Individual tenants will bear most, if not…
A private high school that relies on business participation, the first of its kind in Indiana, is set to open downtown in the fall of 2006. A work-study program designed to help lowincome students pay for tuition and give them corporate work experience is what will set Providence Cristo Rey High School apart from its private and public counterparts throughout the state. Corporate sponsors said it will also give promising students a local business connection, which could help keep them…
Rob Cullin and Rodd Cutler thought there must be a way to adapt their knowledge of factory-automation technology to libraries, even though the two industries appeared worlds apart. Turns out, automation is automation, Cullin says. By developing the right software, just about anything can be automated and made more efficient. Cullin, who had worked with Cutler for years, was downsized by the company they worked for about five years ago, but wanted to keep his hands in technology. “I had…
It looks like an average, yet stylish, office desk. But press a button and a hutch automatically rises from the back, exposing a flat-panel monitor, speakers, a printer and storage areas. Press the button again and the hutch descends, providing wide-open work space. The desk is the first product available from upstart Arise Innovations Inc. Partners Tom Doane, 39, and Jeffrey Hallal, 48, have a patent pending on the design and have sold production rights to Jasper based Inwood Office…
When the workers at DaimlerChrysler Corp.’s Indianapolis Foundry clock out for the last time at the end of the month, they’ll leave behind 756,000 square feet of factory space, tons of equipment, and more than 52 acres of industrial land on the city’s west side. Rather than becoming a rusting industrial relic along Interstate 70, however, the buildings will be razed and real estate experts expect the land will soon find a new use, albeit likely not for a factory….
I walked a little more than two miles recently on the Monon Trail. This probably surprises those who know me. But even the most slothful will, on occasion, rise from the recliner and not go to the refrigerator. The Monon Trail runs from 10th Street in Indianapolis to 146th Street in Carmel. That’s about 20 miles. It follows the route the Monon Railroad abandoned in 1987. It has been identified as a model for other rails-to-trails programs. The trail is…
Most concerned about higher commuting costs are employers on the periphery of Indianapolis, where there is little or no bus transportation for workers who live in Marion County. “At some point, for an hourly worker, it becomes cost-prohibitive to drive to Plainfield for work,” said Kim Woodward, director of human resources for Brightpoint Inc. The wireless phone distributor has a warehouse in the Hendricks County town that employs 611, plus about 100 contract workers. “Public transportation is not readily available,”…
Productivity. Comfort. Longevity. While the old saying about location applies to most commercial real estate decisions, the issues of promoting productivity, providing a comfortable working environment and choosing materials that last become preeminent after the lease is signed. current space-is not something you do everyday. If you’re part of a mid-sized or small business, then it’s highly likely that you’re juggling real estate decisions at the same time you’re trying to advance your business. As a result of this pressure,…
When a team of developers took on the renovation of downtown’s Buggs Temple in fall 2003, most windows in the historic church were missing, the roof was riddled with holes, and much of the sanctuary floor was in the basement. Almost two years later, it’s difficult to gauge the progress of the project by sight. The floor is entirely gone, as are the balcony, the doors and the few windows that remained. In that time, however, the building on West…
Most of us have been in a doctor’s office, and many of us have had conditions that require treatment. But few of us are likely to hear any information presented on the cost of different treatment options along with their benefits, especially if we are one of the 170 million people covered by employer- or governmentprovided health insurance. It is an amazing fact that nearly $3 trillion of health care goods and services are ordered off a menu that has…
To save themselves from unforeseen trouble down the road, buyers of site-development and buildingdesign services would be wise to consider the joint efforts of an experienced architectural firm working in tandem with an environmental consultant. The reason is fairly simple: Architects are trained to have knowledge in so many diverse and ever-changing subjects that the singular expertise of an environmental consultant can provide significant support in an area still quite new to many designers. While working with restrictive rules and…
“That’s called bioaugmentation,” said Pat Kiel, executive director of the Indiana Ready Mix Concrete Association. “Concrete science meets bioscience.” Nearly 90 percent of pollutants are typically carried by the first 1-1/2 inches of a daily rainfall into rivers and streams, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA requires that the first threefourths of an inch of rain each day be maintained on site until treated. Typically, most of that water, which includes “first flush” contaminants, is collected in…
Anthem Inc.’s $1.9 billion initial public offering in late 2001 set all kinds of records. It was the biggest IPO for a U.S. health care company ever, and the biggest IPO for a Hoosier company of any kind. But that company, now known as WellPoint Inc., was puny compared with its size today. Then, it had a market value of $3.9 billion; now, thanks to acquisitions and a surging stock price, it’s worth $45 billion. WellPoint shares were trading last…
For the most part, construction has been a local story, a story about local workers building buildings in our community. But the story isn’t so local anymore. Global economic forces have begun to intersect with local issues at the construction site. The result: a significant and ongoing increase in construction costs across central Indiana and the rest of the United States-an increase that shows no signs of slowing. Through the first quarter of 2004, construction costs increased at a calm…
The convention kicks off with a shotgun golf outing Sept. 14 at Pebble Brook Golf Club. After golf, attendees can tour five downtown architectural firms. Workshops that begin the next day will follow three tracks of programs-design, community projects and professional development, Kunce said. They will cover a variety of topics including starting a practice, building code requirements, civic initiatives and design- About 250 architects from Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana will converge downtown Sept. 14-17 when Indianapolis hosts the American…
Even though Indiana is one of the nation’s biggest growers of corn-the key ingredient in cheaper-than-gasoline ethanol-not a single ethanol pump is available to the average motorist in the Indianapolis area. That twisted irony in a day of record gasoline prices may soon be no more, with a handful of central Indiana gas stations likely to start offering an ethanol alternative-known as E85-by yearend, according to proponents of the fuel. “I hope by Christmas to have a couple in the…
Workers at the once-beleaguered International Truck and Engine Corp. plant on the city’s southeast side are thinking expansion following a $300 million plant upgrade and word of an aggressive 2006 marketing campaign designed to clean up the public image of diesel engines. Improvements to the 1.1-million-squarefoot Brookville Road facility were necessary to meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandates for diesel engines set to take effect in 2007, but the plant’s future seems secure well beyond that. The local subsidiary of…
Wanted: director of a major fine-art museum in the midst of a campaign to reposition itself in its market. Significant expansion recently completed, more to come. The ideal applicant will be part CEO, part art expert, part fund-raiser. That could be the ad placed by the Indianapolis Museum of Art for a new director. Unfortunately for IMA, it could also be an ad placed by at least 14 other art museums nationwide. With a $74 million expansion recently opened, IMA…
