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Appliance biz heads north: Clark to open Castleton store, compete with H.H. Gregg Fine Lines for high-end customers

The high-end appliance retailer Clark Appliance Showcase will open a store practically in the back yard of its closest competitor in early March. Does the move signal a turf battle between two local retailers that cater to homeowners willing to pay luxury car prices for a kitchen? Not really. The local market for products such as $10,000 Viking ranges is growing so fast that executives at Clark and H.H. Gregg think there’s room for both on the northeast side. “It’s…

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Bike Line, Broad Ripple firm plan Mass Ave purchases: Two sales would be latest in owner-occupant trend

Two buildings on Massachusetts Avenue downtown are slated to change hands in coming weeks as two Broad Ripple businesses stake their claims on the resurging corridor. The first deal scheduled to close is the sale of 409 Massachusetts Ave., owned for the last 15 years by advertising firm Young & Laramore. Elizabeth Dillon, owner of RN Specialties, plans to move her growing 10-year-old company and its 21 employees into the 17,000-square-foot building after minor renovations to the ad agency’s former…

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Growing numbers facing ‘rich’ tax: Alternative minimum tax reaching middle class

The number of Americans subject to the alternative minimum tax is expected to skyrocket this year unless Congress passes a retroactive safeguard. The tax, designed to prevent the rich from skirting taxation, threatens more middle-class families every year because of inflation. But because federal lawmakers failed to extend a “patch” that normally protects the less-than-wealthy from the AMT, it is estimated that 16 million more taxpayers could fall into its grasp this year. The AMT is catching many local taxpayers…

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Daniels’ team shakes up pension fund for teachers: Retirement plan may risk more on private equity

Under Gov. Mitch Daniels, Indiana is renewing its commitment to making sure teachers receive their pensions. But in the process, the state may also put their pension principal at greater risk. State Budget Director Chuck Schalliol said the $7.5 billion Indiana State Teachers’ Retirement Fund is considering expanding its holdings in private equity. The enormous pension fund already allocates 5 percent of its assets, or $240 million, toward such investments, which include venture capital, real estate and leveraged buyouts. Highly…

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TOM HARTON Commentary: On defense, Republicans get divisive

After Republicans Scott Keller and Lance Langsford broke party ranks at the Dec.19 City-County Council meeting and voted for cop consolidation and an expanded human-rights ordinance, fellow Republican Jim Bradford e-mailed them and questioned whether they were true Republicans. Lately, it’s Bradford and other Republican hard-liners who don’t seem like the Indianapolis Republicans of old. Republicans mayors Richard Lugar, William Hudnut and Steve Goldsmith provided pragmatic, progressive leadership here in the 1970s and ’80s and ’90s. Lugar and longtime Council…

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Big sale finishes hot year: Firm buys 6 office buildings at Keystone at the Crossing; price lags other mega-deals

A record year for sales of local office properties is ending with a bang, as a half dozen buildings at Keystone at the Crossing change hands. Philadelphia-based Berwind Property Group purchased a six-building portfolio, including the high-rise office towers at Keystone at the Crossing, from Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association. The deal, which closed Dec. 22, includes buildings totaling about 1 million square feet at 8500, 8888, 8900, 8930, 9100 and 9200 Keystone Crossing, developed by locally based Duke Realty…

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Marsh puts itself up for sale:

Locally based Marsh Supermarkets Inc. closed out perhaps the most disappointing year in its nearly 75-year history by hanging a for-sale sign on its front door. The announcement came Nov. 29, the same day the grocer reported another disappointing quarter-this time a $3.4 million loss on revenue of $549.6 million. Marsh said it had hired Merrill Lynch to explore alternatives, including a sale, but otherwise said little. Increasing competition from large-format retailers such as Wal-Mart is partly to blame for…

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Hotel proposed for Hamilton County’s Strawtown: Site overlaps sensitive American Indian land

Hamilton County park officials hope to find a developer to build a three-star hotel in 750-acre Strawtown Koteewi Park, an area rich with fragile American Indian artifacts. Businesses near the northeastern Hamilton County park love the idea. American Indian groups are less enthusiastic, but willing to work with park officials. “It’s kind of disturbing,” said Chief Brian Buchanan of the Miami Nation of Indians of the State of Indiana. “You wouldn’t want anybody digging up your grandmother.” Buchanan learned of…

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Duke, Bremner pairing bearing fruit for both companies: Venture surpasses goals with $100 million in projects

A year after forming a joint venture to pursue health care development, Duke Realty Corp. and Bremner Healthcare Real Estate are preparing to storm the Southeast, one of Duke’s stronghold markets, by opening offices in Atlanta and Miami, and by bringing on a new partner. Announced last December, Duke’s and Bremner’s joint venture this year locked up $100 million worth of projects, ranging from a medical office building on Michigan Road in Hamilton County to an outpatient hospital in Summit,…

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MSA condo interest builds: With sales up, developer hopes to begin site work in January

Two months after unveiling a new name, new floor plans and a new sales center for their development, the team in charge of building condominiums on the former Market Square Arena site is reporting more success than the first time around. Reservations have been taken for two-thirds of the units that need to be sold before the developer can fund One Market Square, real estate agent Kurt Flock told the Metropolitan Development Commission Dec. 7. Market Square Partners is considering…

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BEHIND THE NEWS: Another mark against Marsh: It has big pension shortfall

As if Marsh Supermarkets Inc. didn’t have enough problems, here’s another whopper: The company has a drastically underfunded employee pension plan-to the tune of $44 million. That figure is disclosed deep within a Securities and Exchange Commission filing the company submitted in June. It shows the pension plan had assets of $39 million, less than half its $83 million in projected obligations. It’s a big shortfall, and one analysts say is sure to draw the attention of potential suitors. An…

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Clarian nabs UAC building: Hospital network wins bid for former corporate headquarters

Clarian Health Partners is polishing a deal to buy the former Union Acceptance Corp. headquarters on North Shadeland Avenue, a move that plants a large footprint for the burgeoning hospital network squarely in a competitor’s east-side back yard. Clarian made the winning bid for the 126,000-square-foot building at a Nov. 15 auction, but the sale had not closed as of Nov. 30, said Bob Getts of Colliers Turley Martin Tucker, which ran the auction. He referred all questions to Clarian….

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Landlords may face big holes: If groceries close, centers would suffer

Marsh Supermarkets Inc. serves as an anchor tenant for dozens of central Indiana shopping centers. So if the company or a buyer ends up closing stores, centers across the region could be left with gaping holes. Not only can large vacant spaces in shopping centers make them look blighted. They also reduce customer counts at smaller retailers that feed off grocery store traffic, retail experts say. “People go to the grocery store once or twice or three times in a…

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BULLS & BEARS: Buffett colleague Munger is also a man of wisdom

I am reading the book “Poor Charlie’s Almanack,” edited by Peter Kaufman. It’s mostly a compilation of advice from Charlie Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and chairman of Wesco Financial, which is 80-percent owned by Berkshire. Munger, 81, owns Berkshire Hathaway stock worth $1.6 billion. Like Berkshire Chairman Warren Buffett, Munger hails from Omaha and as a youngster worked at the Buffett and Son grocery owned by Warren’s grandfather. The two were reacquainted in the early 1960s and became…

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Under pressure?: Largest outside shareholder could be pushing Marsh to find buyer

Marsh Supermarkets Inc.’s decision to seek a buyer might not have been made within the company’s Indianapolis headquarters. It might have come from 115 miles away in Cincinnati. That’s home base for the c o m p a ny ‘s largest outside shareholder, A m e r i c a n Financial Group Inc., an insurer controlled by the family of billionaire tycoon Carl Lindner. A source knowledgeable about the discussions said AFG, a Marsh shareholder for more than two…

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EYE ON THE PIE: WestClay, prepare for some competition

U.S. 20 is one of our lesser-known t r a n s c o n t i n e n t a l highways. It starts at the Boston Commons, about two miles from the Green Monster of Fenway Park. The route then winds west to a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean at Newport, Ore. U.S. 20 runs through Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and such cities as Albany, N.Y.; Erie, Pa.; Toledo, Ohio; Rockford, Ill.; Sioux City, Iowa;…

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INVESTING: Slip in home-builder stocks signals market weakness

The big, bad wolf has been huffing and puffing against homebuilding stocks, and for a while it didn’t look as if he’d blow the house down. The outlook changed in early August, however, and the wolf now is seeing results. Residential real estate became the talk of the cocktail party circuit after the market topped in 2000. Over the next five years, the stories became more and more fantastic. Condos in south Florida doubling in price. Shacks in California tripling….

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CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: Setting an example for Sacramento

“To improve Sacramento, learn from Indianapolis” was the headline of a column in the Nov. 18 Sacramento Business Journal. It’s always nice to get a compliment and some good PR. Turns out a delegation of nearly a hundred Sacramentonians-or is it Sacramentites?-were here in October on a three-day study mission to learn how to become a great city. It was the seventh year in a row for them to make a learning visit to another community. Tom Stallard, head of…

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Fledgling Music Mill finding its beat: Venue strikes chord with local concert fans

On its opening night late last year, Music Mill started off with a bang. The first concert at the northside venue was the Scissor Sisters, an energetic New York band whose self-titled debut album includes a disco-flavored cover of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.” More than 400 people showed up for the Dec. 15 show. More than half of them were lastminute arrivals who bought their tickets the day of the show. “We got to find out on our first big…

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Industry races to promote itself: Statewide motorsports group hopes to thwart competition from other U.S. markets

Area motorsports leaders are gearing up for another run at unifying the industry and assuring the region retains its status as one of the world’s leading motorsports markets. Organizers of the latest effort promise they won’t spin their wheels this time around. They’re casting a wider net-going statewide with a motorsports association-to attract more members and build more clout with the media, local and state lawmakers, and service providers, such as banks and insurance companies. The Indiana Motorsports Association Inc….

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