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Office tower bounces back: Renovated National City Center recovering from loss of Simon

Once reeling from the loss of its largest tenant, National City Center now has a rising occupancy rate amid a major renovation that is resuscitating the aging office building. Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group Inc. vacated 182,000 square feet in National City Center by moving to its new headquarters a block away in the fall of 2006. The departure left the 16-story tower at the southwest corner of Washington and Illinois streets 28-percent unoccupied after years of being nearly full. Owner…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Study exposes unfortunate work-force realities

For more than a half-century, we have built complex statistical models to attempt to explain why regions enjoy different levels of prosperity. Virtually every conceivable variable-from ethno-linguistic similarity indexes to existing natural resources to government structures-have been tried, with the models proving enormously successful. One critical insight in this extensive body of research is that human capital-the quality of a labor force-yields the strongest explanation for differences in prosperity. When we apply these models to the United States, the importance…

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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Protestors shouldn’t control community development

N e i g h b o r h o o d activists in Pittsburgh are fighting a development that would bring a grocery store, job training center, youth programs and other social services to the area of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ $290 million arena. The Pittsburgh group was planning a march in protest. Is retail and commercial development next to a sports arena a bad idea? A Cambridge, Mass., neighborhood group was opposed to the development of three townhomes, arguing…

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Is film tax break a bad idea?

Gov. Mitch Daniels had sharp words for legislators after they finished overriding his veto of tax breaks
for the film industry.

â??Itâ??s truly an irresponsible decision, and I canâ??t imagine what they were thinking,â?? he fired off in a statement
yesterday.

Are…

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Kentucky as gambling competitor

The developing story in Kentucky about its new governorâ??s attempt to legalize casinos isnâ??t getting a lot
of play in Indianapolis, but the fallout could be huge if he succeeds.

Steve Beshear wants a dozen casinos to try to stop gamblers…

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Township government travails

Center Township Trustee Carl Drummer may be a nice guy, but he sure knows how to squirrel away taxpayer
dollars, IBJ reporter Peter Schnitzler showed us in this weekendâ??s IBJ.

Drummer has racked up a $7.1 million surplus â??…

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Trustee inches toward redeveloping property portfolio

Center Township Trustee Carl Drummer and his predecessors have stockpiled more than money over the years. The trustee’s office
also holds a portfolio of mostly undeveloped properties worth at least $10 million. Several key parcels have been on the trustee’s
books-and off the tax rolls-for decades. Drummer has made some progress in finding uses for the properties since an IBJ special
report first questioned his holdings in November 2006. But it would have to be measured in inches. The most…

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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Green building should be the norm, not the anomaly

I cringed when I heard the news: Indiana is second to last when it comes to being green. We’re supposed to be America’s heartland. But instead of being known for the life sciences, economic initiatives or even our corn fields, we’re getting recognized for our dirty air and water. Last year, Forbes conducted a study to find the greenest states in the country. Vermont, Oregon and Washington topped the list. At the bottom: Alabama, Indiana and West Virginia. While Indiana…

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Changes down road for transportation planning group?: Metropolitan Planning Organization weighs merger

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…

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SPECIAL REPORT: Center Township trustee taps taxpayers for millions

At an aging building at 863 Massachusetts Ave., they pass through a metal detector and wait in line to show a clerk their
identification and copies of overdue bills. Center Township Trustee Carl Drummer sometimes helps. The Trustee’s Office received
an average of $6.9 million each of the last seven years, mostly from taxes, to provide poor relief-now known as township assistance.
But only about $2 million reached the penniless each year, with much of the difference covering administrative overhead….

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STATEHOUSE DISPATCH: Legislators want tough reforms, but not too tough

The next two weeks should be interesting ones in the General Assembly, but not for the reason you might expect. Now that bills have cleared their chambers of origin and moved across the Rotunda for consideration, there is a natural lull of sorts as lobbyists breathe a collective sigh of relief and gird themselves to battle with a different set of lawmakers. You saw this in recent days, as committee action again took center stage, and action on the floor…

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Law firms making green push: Environmental teams provide marketing boost

The next generation of environmental law is coming to a firm near you. Many law firms have existing practices that counsel clients on the complexities of complying with air and water permits or cleaning up contaminated properties. But now that the corporate sector is embracing “green” initiatives quicker than Al Gore accumulates carbon credits, environmental law is becoming as sexy as, say, intellectual property. Two of the city’s largest firms-Ice Miller LLP and Baker & Daniels LLP-recently unveiled so-called “green”…

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Ex-member: Township board ‘bored by the budget’

Although he collects an average $6.9 million each year for poor relief, mostly from taxes, Center Township Trustee Carl Drummer
is rarely asked to explain his finances. Drummer’s budget is filed-unread-each year in the Indianapolis City Controller’s
office. The 66-employee Indiana Department of Local Government Finance reviews it, along with budgets from every other taxing
entity in the state. Year-end reports go to the State Board of Accounts, a 282-worker agency that conducts 2,700 to 3,000
audits of Indiana counties,…

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INVESTING: How Wall Street firms wounded themselves

There will be plenty of future litigation over the subprime mortgage mess. The city of Cleveland has sued 21 of the nation’s biggest mortgage firms, claiming their s u b p r i m e – l e n d i n g practices created a public nuisance that hurt property values and city tax collections. And the FBI, in conjunction with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is looking into the various players to see if fraud was committed. While…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Why Hoosiers should shed distrust of referendums

Should Indiana’s taxpayers vote on school construction? This seemingly simple question is a vexing issue for the Legislature. The debate surrounding the issue is surprisingly misguided and emotional. A few ill-informed editorials have not added value to the debate. Let me add a bit of data to the discussion to enlarge our understanding. Under Indiana’s current system of government, no elected official reviews the complete budgetary process for local government spending. This, perhaps more than anything else, has caused our…

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A new desire for streetcars

Electric streetcars are an old idea that should be brought back, some civic leaders believe.

IBJ reporter Chris Oâ??Malley writes today that heavyweights including Indiana Convention and Visitors Association
President Bob Bedell are backing a not-for-profit called Downtown Indianapolis…

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VIEWPOINT: Cookie-cutter schools: a fatally flawed idea

What would happen if Congress passed a law requiring every U.S. statehouse to use the exact same building design? And that every city hall, every fire station and library must be built from a canned design? Imagine being told that, from now on, every house in the state would have the exact same design, so homeowners could spend less on design costs. It sounds crazy to think one design fits all, but that’s exactly what lawmakers are considering for educational…

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STATEHOUSE DISPATCH: Tax reform nudges state toward a la carte government

Most observers have viewed the 2008 legislative session as one almost singlemindedly devoted to property tax reform. While, of course, that is true, if you step back, a broader truism begins to emerge. This is not only a session destined to produce property tax reform, but one that begins the process of changing the role of government and how it intrudes into the lives of Hoosiers-or how it helps them, depending upon your perspective. Beyond property tax reform, this session…

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INVESTING: World’s response to woes likely to make them worse

From one end of the world to the other, governments are drawing a blueprint. They’re doing exactly what you would expect given the recent fall in global equities. If the past is any indication, they’re going to make matters worse. That means the best way to make a bundle over the next 12 months might be to short-sell stocks-in other words, to bet against the market. The current problems began in August when the subprime problem erupted onto the national…

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