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City picks Marriott, passes on Pan Am plan:

A willingness to redesign and add rooms to its proposed JW Marriott hotel helped push locally based REI Real Estate Services and its partner over the top in their quest to build a convention headquarters hotel. The team of REI and Merrillville-based White Lodging Services Corp. proposed building an 800-room JW Marriott as the centerpiece of a 1,500-room, five-hotel complex at the site of the existing Courtyard by Marriott hotel at West and Washington streets. A city committee charged with…

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Bringing Honda to Greensburg highlights a wild year for Daniels:

It was a banner economic development year for Gov. Mitch Daniels, topped by the blockbuster Honda auto plant deal. Thanks in part to a second trip to Japan, Daniels landed a $550 million plant for Greensburg in June. Slated to begin production in 2008, the plant is expected to employ more than 2,000 people. Two months earlier, Daniels unveiled “Accelerating Growth,” his economic development plan for the state. Its ambitious goal is to boost Hoosiers’ per-capita income to the national…

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CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: IBJ has big plans for coming year

This has been a strong year for your local business weekly. We take seriously our mission of providing readers with the best, most in-depth coverage of local business, so it is with a sense of both pride and gratitude that I report on our most successful year ever. Editor Tom Harton has called 2006 the Year of the Award. This year, IBJ won 18 news awards-eight of them gold-from three different organizations. Our coverage was recognized nine times by our…

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NOTIONS: Resolutions and predictions: Why bother?

Bruce Hetrick is on vacation this week. In his absence, this column, which appeared on Dec. 30, 2002, is being reprinted. The gym will be rife with resolvers these next few weeks. They’ll arrive, eagerbeaver, wearing sweats, headphones and heart monitors purchased as Christmas gifts by relatives hoping to encourage good habits, longer lives and less flab to hold onto in the night. On all this pricey merchandise, you’ll see Nike, Reebok, Adidas and Roots. That way, the resolvers can…

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Breaking up may be hard, but museum thrives anyway: Conner Prairie turning red ink to black as it embraces independence after years-long governance dispute

Nearly a year after its split from longtime trustee Earlham College, Conner Prairie is on the rebound. The Hamilton County living-history museum is poised to close out 2006 with more revenue than expenses-the first time in years it’s been in the black. “We feel very good about it,” said Berkley Duck, board chairman for both the museum and its affiliated foundation. “We’re coming in pretty well against what we estimated.” That’s impressive, considering the 32-member board didn’t have much time…

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Residents say safety is a growing concern: Survey: Fewer feel comfortable downtown after dark

Most central Indiana residents feel safe in downtown Indianapolis when the sun is out, but remain leery of the city at night, according to a study by the IUPUI Department of Tourism, Conventions and Event Management. The annual study, which is designed to gauge the impact of cultural tourism on quality of life, gives the city high marks overall in areas ranging from cultural attractions to cleanliness, public transportation to parking. But it also shows the city has more work…

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Marketing firm targets tech types: Seven-figure deal shows DGS’ diversification is working

When DGS Marketing Engineers signed a blockbuster deal this September with one of the nation’s largest industrial chemical companies, owners of the ad agency knew making their micro-niche just a little broader was going to pay big dividends. The local marketing and advertising agency recently decided to step outside its super-specific niche of working with companies that make machine tools to target companies working in just about any technical field. “This is a specialized advertising field that goes beyond mere…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Legislative process has its own language

It’s probably not wise to admit this in a family-friendly publication, but one of my favorite comedians always has been George Carlin. The man has a genius for zooming in on the language we hear and use every day and finding nuances and symbolism that we never knew was there. Every time I land in an airplane, I have to laugh, because George Carlin reminded us how crazy it is for the pilot who landed at the same time we…

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Tax-law change drives donors to other options: Vehicle auctions by not-for-profits are on the decline

The 1968 Volvo coupe may have been the ugliest car parked in the Marion County Auto Auction lot, with its worn sheepskin seat covers, duct-taped headlight and mustard-yellow paint scheme. But someone liked it enough to bid $475 to take it off the hands of Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana Inc. Goodwill has depended on thousands of used-and nearly useless-donated vehicles like the Volvo to bring in more than $1 million annually through its auctions. But it and other charities…

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Bipartisan control will force compromises: With campaigns over, legislators get down to business on new budget, property-tax relief and other issues

In his 2007 legislative preview for the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, State Rep. Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, opened with a joke: After a politician’s death, he found himself standing before the pearly gates. St. Peter offered the politician a choice of heaven or hell, prefaced by a brief preview of each. During his visit to hell, the politician was surprised to discover all his friends there. What’s more, it was a terrific place to be-the most fun and raucous party he’d…

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EYE ON THE PIE: ‘Tis the season for economic foolishness

This is the best time of the year. Thanksgiving is over and the signs of Christmas have yet to bore us. All the truly crazy people have identified themselves by shopping on the days immediately following Thanksgiving. New and old ideas are blossoming for consideration by the Indiana General Assembly. Gov. Mitch Daniels has given us the Commerce Connector, a nifty addition to our highway road map. This would be a new outer loop around Indianapolis, serving Greenfield, Shelbyville, Franklin…

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CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: Working together on multiple fronts

Nov. 14 was a good day for Indianapolis. It was the day we learned the Diversity Leadership Academy of Greater Indianapolis is alive and well. Three years ago, I attended the academy in the inaugural year of a three-year program that was brought here by Atlanta-based American Institute for Managing Diversity. What facilitated its arrival in 2003 was a three-year sponsorship to the tune of more than a half-million dollars by Anthem, a local company that has been at the…

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BEHIND THE NEWS: Hilbert testimony ‘false and misleading’? Conseco says yes

Conseco Inc. already has won an $80 million judgment against Stephen Hilbert, a ruling the U.S. Supreme Court let stand this fall. Through the threeyear legal battle, attorneys for the two sides lambasted one another. Bad blood abounds. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Next month, in addition to staging a sheriff’s sale of Hilbert’s $20 million Carmel mansion, once the site of the states’s most lavish parties, the company plans to call Hilbert to the stand and accuse him of…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Is designing for blind worth the trouble and cost?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a potentially groundbreaking lawsuit stewing in the cauldron of a California federal court. There, the National Federation of the Blind has been allowed to go forward in its suit against Target Brands, which runs Target department stores, claiming that Target should have to make its Web site as easily accessible to the blind as its brick-and-mortar stores. I thought it would be an obscure case, but it’s been puffed up into something of…

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EYE ON THE PIE: Indiana: a primer for the Legislature

The General Assembly is organizing itself. This is more difficult than getting fleas to join a union. But I am being disrespectful. My purpose this week is benign. I present for the consideration of our 150 legislators certain facts about Indiana and where it ranks nationally. The data are from the 2005 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census. First, let’s consider sex. Of the 6.1 million Hoosiers, 50.9 percent are females, which leaves 49.1 percent…

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Showing WAL MART some love: New statewide group supports oft-criticized retailer

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…

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VIEWPOINT: Diversity has unexpected benefits

As a leader of your company, are you taking advantage of the benefits of diversity? Is your organization’s culture resistant to change? Are you considering the business advantages of diversity? Can a firm without a variety of internal perspectives and ex perience meet 21st-century challenges? In our industry, professionals come in all colors, shapes and sizes and from just about every culture in the world. We see a host of opportunities as a result of the incredible diversity in qualified…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Daniel’s toll-road plan futuristic, not dated

Is building roads innovative? Some reactions voiced in the wake of the Gov. Mitch Daniels’ proposal to build a 75-mile beltway around the east and southern quadrants of central Indiana say no. Outer belts, it is said, are a mistaken product of 1960sera thinking, robbing growth from central cities and helping create the faceless suburban landscape that surrounds so many major cities today. Innovative thinking on transportation, one might say, would embrace new technology and get us away from the…

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Bypass too tentative to affect land values, experts say: Property near toll-road exits may be coveted eventually, but uncertain route should keep speculators at bay for now

When Gov. Mitch Daniels unveiled his ambitious but vague plan for an outer loop around more than half of Indianapolis, some landowners in the potential path panicked while others dreamt of a windfall. But local experts say, until a route is more defined, neither worry nor anticipation is warranted. “There are so many outstanding issues,” said Abbe Hohmann, a land-price expert for the local office of St. Louisbased Colliers Turley Martin Tucker. Hohmann said two types of buyers usually drive…

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VIEWPOINT: Does Indiana have a ‘vision thing’?

Nothing hurts a plan more than a lack of vision. The primary aim of the Indiana Economic Development Corp.’s plan-Accelerating Growth, Indiana’s Strategic Economic Development Plan-announced in April, is to boost personal income per capita to the national average by 2020. An effort to achieve an average standard in 14 years seems to be an unusually low aspiration. The historical record makes this target appear more challenging. Indiana has ranked 30th to 34th in the nation in percapita personal income…

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