Webcor will start construction in August on the $55 million renovation of San Francisco’s Moscone Center.
The renovation work, which is being managed by Jones Lang LaSalle, will include cosmetic improvements to the main exhibit halls — A, B and C — and minor HVAC work in the North meeting rooms. A second phase of work is slated to begin in December with cosmetic upgrades to selected restrooms to bring them into compliance with the American Disabilities Act. The second phase will also include renovation of meeting rooms in Moscone North.
Built in 1981 and expanded in 1991 and again in 2003, the 20-acre Moscone Center convention complex consists of three main buildings – Moscone North, South and West – totaling more than two million square feet and offering 740,000 square feet of meeting and exhibition space.
Construction and cosmetic improvement work will be timed to avoid any disruption to the facility, Jones Lang LaSalle said.
The renovation is being funded through a public-private partnership between the City of San Francisco and the San Francisco Tourism Improvement District Management Corporation (SFTID), a privately-funded group formed by local hotels specifically to make improvements to the Moscone Center and to promote tourism in San Francisco.
The city is providing $35 million toward the total cost of renovations with the SFTID generating an additional $20 million through a self- assessment of San Francisco hotels.
“Moscone Center is an integral part of San Francisco’s biggest economic driver – tourism – and this forward-thinking program promoted by the City and SFTID is critical for maintaining the facility’s competitiveness in the coming years,” said Steven Kahn, Senior VP and regional operations manager with JLL’s project and development services group in Northern California payday loans.
Kahn added that in addition to the phased renovation of the facility, Jones Lang LaSalle would also be looking at ways to improve the convention center’s energy efficiency making Moscone more sustainable and paving the way for LEED certification during future phases of improvement to the facility.
More than a third of visitors to San Francisco attend a convention or meeting in the city, and Moscone Center is by far the biggest venue for such meetings, according to the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau. Moscone Center has hosted major national meetings such as MacWorld, OpenWorld and Oracle’s national convention as well as major West Coast events such as the Pacific Coast Builders Conference (PCBC).
“In 2009, San Francisco welcomed 15.4 million visitors, which represents a 5.8 percent decrease from 2008. Visitor spending was $7.8 billion, a decrease of 7.8 percent from the previous year,” said Dan Kelleher, chair of the San Francisco Tourism Improvement District. “The renovation of Moscone Center will be a critical component to attracting new and repeat convention business to San Francisco by providing an enhanced delegate experience.”
Jones Lang LaSalle’s Project and Development Services group provides single or multi-site project management expertise for new construction, renovation and interior improvements of a wide variety of buildings and other structures for owners and corporate users as well as public agencies in the U.S. and globally.
Cash advance loans and online payday loans available today. Apply now and receive up to $1500 no teletrack cash advance in as little as 1 hour, direct lenders.
Design Within Reach will soon require a lot more effort, as the chain closes its midtown store at 16th and J streets.
The company confirmed it would close the 2,700-square-foot store at 1020 16th St. — in the ground-floor of the Loftwork’s o1 Lofts development, which includes Bistro 33 Midtown and P.F. Chang’s China Bistro. Design Within Reach will close March 15, with a 30 percent-off sale until then, a company spokeswoman said paydayloans.
The San Francisco-based company, which has about 60 of the boutique stores featuring cool and trendy furniture nationwide, is the latest to close its local outlet during the recession. Two employees work at the store.
The company has a Berkeley and three San Francisco stores, the soon-to-be closest outlets to Sacramento.
Complicated faxing techniques were always a source of worry as most loan types need an identity proof. But now with the advent of bad credit loans with no faxing, you can apply for payday loans online without much hassle on your part.
The nation’s second-largest shopping mall operator, General Growth Properties Inc., said Wednesday that it reached a deal with Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management Inc. that will speed its exit from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Speculation raged for weeks that General Growth might turn to Brookfield, which has been looking to expand its slate of U.S. retail properties and last year acquired an undisclosed stake in the company.
General Growth, in turn, could thwart last week’s $10 billion takeover bid from Simon Property Group Inc. The No. 1 shopping mall operator controls some 382 properties worldwide including the Regency Plaza center in St. Charles, St. Louis Mills mall in Hazelwood and Lincoln Crossing in O’Fallon, Ill.
General Growth rebuffed the unsolicited offer from Simon for being too low cash advance to savings account. A Simon spokeswoman didn’t have a comment.
General Growth owns or manages 200 shopping malls in 44 states, including St. Louis Galleria. The company racked up $27 billion in debt by the time it sought shelter from creditors last April, making it the largest real estate bankruptcy case in U.S. history.
As part of the new plan, General Growth would spin off some assets as a new company named General Growth Opportunities, which would essentially hold assets the company concedes aren’t producing much income currently, including the company’s master planned communities and some large retail hubs, such as the South Street Seaport in New York.
Arizona State University is partnering with Teach For America to transform ASU’s teacher education program.
With a five-year, $18.9 million investment from entrepreneur and philanthropist T. Denny Sanford, ASU will partner with Teach for America to bring changes to the way ASU recruits, selects and prepares K-12 teachers.
The Sanford Education Project will use Teach For America’s tools to recruit teachers to work in low-income communities. Since 1990, Teach for America has recruited, trained and placed more than 24,000 teachers in low-income communities guaranteed payday loans. It has developed strategies to attract people into teaching who otherwise may not have chosen the profession. It also has developed support systems to help those teachers in the classroom and built a pipeline of leaders in the community focused on quality education.
As part of Sanford’s investment, ASU’s College of Teacher Education and Leadership will create a summer institute based on Teach For America’s model.
When General American Life Insurance Co. commissioned acclaimed architect Philip Johnson to design its downtown St. Louis headquarters in the mid-1970s, the firm sought to create something striking to bolster what was then a barren area along the south side of Market Street.
Many architectural aficionados say Johnson delivered.
In essence, he designed a three-story dark-glass box that was just under 130,000 square feet. But here’s the twist: As if slicing a sandwich, Johnson divided the building diagonally, then perched half of it on columns.
"What he did, very creatively, was take a building, cut it on the diagonal and lift one part of the triangle," said H. Edwin Trusheim, General American’s chairman who retired 18 years ago. "You’ve now created a six-story building out of a three-story building."
General American moved to a location in south St. Louis County in 2004. Since then, the building has sat vacant, but a revival of sorts is in the works.
Centaur Properties of New York, which bought the building in 2005 for $6.1 million, says it will spend as much as $10 million in 2010 to spruce up the building to lure potential tenants and restore its historic appeal.
The building’s exterior glass remains in good shape, but the heating and cooling systems will be replaced. The rest of the rehab budget will go toward specific tenants’ needs, said Mike Donovan, a principal at Balke Brown Associates of St. Louis, which is marketing the building for sale or lease. Its $21 per-square-foot rent is at the upper end of the downtown office market.
By itself, a multimillion-dollar refurbishment won’t eliminate the General American building’s competition for tenants downtown, where the overall vacancy rate remains at about 20 percent. Finding the right fit among potential tenants hasn’t been easy, said Kevin Farrell, director of economic and housing development with the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis.
He pointed out that two law firms considered moving into the building since General American moved out.
While the building’s architect is noteworthy, Farrell said prospective tenants will be enticed by the building’s views of Citygarden, the Old Courthouse, Busch Stadium and the Arch.
"It’s a building with a lot of interesting attributes," Farrell said. "You need to find somebody who falls in love with it."
Johnson helped launch the Modernist movement of glass skyscrapers in the 1950s easy online payday loans. In New York, he had a hand in Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram building, the epitome of the sleek corporate headquarters. The Pritzker prize, architecture’s version of the Oscar, was established in 1979. Johnson was the first recipient.
His Modernist towers in the 1980s included the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. building in Pittsburgh and the Transco Tower in Houston. He also helped start a Post-Modernist phase of architecture with his AT&T building in New York.
Above the AT&T’s Modernist facade is an enormous pediment resembling the top of a Chippendale desk. Johnson was 98 when he died in 2005.
Even compared to such high-profile projects, the General American building ranks high in the Johnson portfolio, said John Berendzen, a partner at Fox Architects in St. Louis. "It’s a very clean Modernist building," said Berendzen, who years ago designed some interior remodeling there.
"It’s a very simple, yet very complex structure."
It was General American’s vice president, Stanley Richman, who should be credited for bringing Johnson to St. Louis, Trusheim said. Richman, who died in 1985, was a "Renaissance man" of many interests, including architecture.
"Stan searched out architects and, at that time, Philip Johnson was one of the leading architects in the United States," Trusheim said during a recent phone interview from his home in Minneapolis.
For now, however, the building remains empty.
Though intended for a single tenant, the "tremendous amount of public-type space" could allow for retrofitting the structure for several occupants, Berendzen said.
Law firm Blackwell Sanders nearly relocated to the General American building from the Laclede Gas building in 2006. The deal fell through at the last minute. Blackwell merged last year with Husch & Eppenberger and consolidated this year in Clayton. Bob Tomaso, a Husch Blackwell partner involved in the General American negotiation for Blackwell Sanders, wouldn’t explain why the firm passed. Still, he said he admires the building.
"It’s a shame it has sat empty for so long."
University City — For nearly two years, no new development in St. Louis County has obtained tax-increment financing, the controversial incentive that cities use to attract developers.
The Kingsland Walk development, about two blocks north of the Delmar Loop in University City, is expected to change that.
It will be the first TIF project in the county since state law changed the make-up of TIF commissions on Jan. 1, 2008.
For years, local governments doled out tax-increment financing as a tool to encourage developers to locate in their cities. In 2007, the Missouri Legislature changed the law, taking some authority from the cities and adopting a regional countywide approach. That — combined with the downward spiral of the economy — put a lid on TIF requests.
While not as far along as the U. City project, Brentwood, Valley Park, Bridgeton and St. Louis County also are beginning to look at possible TIF projects, said Glenn Powers, the county’s planning director.
Under TIF, a developer may divert some money that would have been used for taxes to help pay for some development costs.
Local governments and schools receive the same base property and sales taxes as before, but forgo part of the additional tax money generated by the development for a period up to 23 years. The jurisdictions expect to benefit fully from the development in future years.
In University City, developer Metropolitan Development-Kingsland Walk LLC has asked for $5.5 million in tax-increment financing for its $36 million project, featuring 98 condos and apartments and more than 23,000 square feet of retail space at the southeastern corner of Vernon and Kingsland avenues. The development would be built in two phases.
The proposed agreement with the city requires the developer to close private financing by March 1 and begin construction within 60 days. A 12-member TIF Commission has given unanimous support and recommended the City Council do the same. Final approval is expected Dec. 7.
"It’s a fabulous re-use of an almost vacant area," Mayor Joe Adams said. "It will help University City move forward."
The developer sought $2.5 million in TIF money for phase one — an area north of Metcalfe Park — and $3 million for the second part, extending to Vernon. The builder will be Metropolitan Design and Building with Thomas Cohen Architecture as architect.
Lehman Walker, director of community development in University City, said Kingsland Walk fit the criteria for the special financing because it’s in a depressed, largely vacant area. University City had only awarded TIFs "if an area is truly blighted and in need of redevelopment," Walker said.
The project would be U. City’s third TIF project and its first in more than 10 years direct payday loan lenders. Powers said TIFs were intended to encourage retail and commercial growth in areas where development might not otherwise happen.
hurting competitors?
The changes in state law altered the composition of 12-member TIF commissions — increasing the number of St. Louis County representatives to six and cutting to three from six the number of slots for the municipality in which the project is situated.
The other three appointees represent affected taxing districts such as school and fire districts.
"The idea behind the changes was to get the composition of the TIF commissions more regional," Powers said. "When a city’s members dominated the commission, a TIF was usually about the city getting more commercial revenue into their city, a lot of times that was at the expense of other cities. You’d open a store here, and another one would shut down over there. "
He gave as an example a Wal-Mart closing in Town and Country and a larger one opening in Manchester a mile away.
"As a county TIF commission member myself, we’re going to be scrutinizing these things a little more. … Do we really want to approve a new retail development if it’s going to hurt the competitor down the road?"
If a county TIF commission turns down a project, the local government may still approve it but only with two-thirds majority of the council. Powers, who was on the commission that voted on Kingsland Walk, said the project was a good use of TIF. "It strengthens what’s already there in University City."
Jay Simon, president and CEO of Metropolitan Design and Building Co. here, said the 98 condos and apartments would vary from 680 square feet to 1,600 square feet. One, two and three-bedroom units would be available in the nine-building project.
"We plan on just building primarily apartments at first due to the market condition on condos," Simon said this week. "Those units will start at $750 a month and go up to $1,680 a month."
Preliminary plans call for Phase One to include four buildings with 51 residential units and about 8,800 square feet of retail space, scheduled for completion by early 2011. Phase Two includes five buildings with 47 residential units and about 11,000 square feet of retail space scheduled for completion by early 2012.
City officials hope the project will be a catalyst to revitalize the eastern part of University City.
"We think this will generate additional improvements as the Loop continues to expand," Walker said.
Lost in all the bickering between Democrats and Republicans when Bank of America officials testified before Congress last week was a seemingly crucial piece of evidence that seems to show the bank’s executives relied on faulty data leading up to the December 5, 2008 shareholder vote on the $50 billion acquisition of Merrill Lynch.
Testimony before (and documents released by) the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last week paint a picture of BofA officials and their lawyers at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz basing their decision not to reveal the extent of Merrill Lynch’s growing fourth-quarter 2008 losses on a flawed "forecast." This forecast — dated November 12, 2008 and prepared by Merrill Lynch — omitted projected losses in November and December from Merrill’s portfolio of CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) and other illiquid assets.
The omission of any projected write-downs for those CDOs in the computer model behind the November 12 document resulted in a "zero" being calculated instead of billions of dollars of losses — as would become apparent a few weeks later — making the projected pre-tax fourth-quarter 2008 loss in the computer model — $8.942 billion — far lower than the $18 billion pre-tax loss it would turn out to be less than a month later on December 10, five days after the shareholder vote.
"Bank of America saw the deficiency in the document," Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said at the hearing, "but they have not shown us that they actually did any actual analysis to make up for Merrill’s omissions. On the contrary, the evidence we have suggests that Bank of America pulled a number out of thin air." (For his part, Nelson Chai, Merrill’s chief financial officer at the time, told Kucinich’s staff that the "document was not intended to be a valid forecast, despite its title.").
The November 12 document is especially revealing not only for its omissions but also for the seemingly random tweaks Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) executives made to it as part of their internal deliberations about whether to make an announcement before the shareholder vote on December 5. At the bottom of a page described as "Merrill Lynch & Co. 4Q’08 Forecast," Bank of America’s executives had upped the projected loss of $8.942 billion to $10.942 billion, an increase of $2 billion in projected losses.
Half of that additional $2 billion in losses, or $1 billion, came simply from something described on the document as "neil gut," or the "gut" guess of Neil Crotty, Bank of America’s Chief Accounting Officer "rather than any actual analysis of Merrill holdings," according to notations on the document made by the Committee’s staff prior to its release publicly last week. The Committee staff also noted that "Bank of America’s top management and attorneys used" the seemingly randomly revised $10.942 billion in projected losses number "in making shareholder disclosure decision."
That process of whether to make the disclosure to shareholders began in earnest on November 12 when Bank of America’s general counsel Tim Mayopoulos called Wachtell Lipton attorney Nicholas Demmo to reveal that Merrill had lost "$7B in October," that "Nov, so far, is flat" and wondering "do we have to get the # out?" to shareholders.
At that point, after seven business days in November, Merrill had shown Bank of America a $227 million loss for the month but that number had not been adjusted downward for the write-downs in the CDO portfolio since no number had been included for that in the model. Bank of America executives seem to have based their decision-making on the faulty model and appear to have done no due diligence of their own.
When Rep. Kucinich’s staff asked Crotty about the November 12 document he said, according to Rep. Kucinich, that it was "of questionable validity" and that he did not have "time to delve deeply into the details of the forecast." Asked about whether the words "neil gut" on the document raised concerns to him, Tim Mayopoulos, Bank of America’s general counsel at the time, testified at the hearing: "I understood that this forecast was in part a guess, that it was an estimate."
On November 13, Mayopoulos had a meeting with the Wachtell attorneys, including Demmo and Ed Herlihy and their meeting notes showed that Mayopoulos "assume[d]" November would be "better" than October but was worried "about not disclosing" (Wachtell’s emphasis, suggesting there was some serious concern at the meeting about not disclosing the losses to shareholders.) Another set of notes from the meeting observed that Mayopoulos said that Merrill would "prob[ably] be deep in the red" for the fourth quarter and then revealed that the lawyers discussed whether Bank of America could just make a "trend disclosure" in the public filings about the deal and could discuss that Bank of America "expect[s] it to be no better than" some number and "might be worse." Mayopoulos remarked that it is "not the end of the world."
A week later, on November 20, Joe Price, Bank of America’s CFO, had a meeting with his attorneys about the question of whether to disclose the Merrill losses to Bank of America’s shareholders before the December 5 vote. On his copy of the November 12 "forecast" — the document that omitted any write-downs for November and December in the CDO portfolio — Price wrote that "Concluded [per] Tim [Mayopoulos] and Ed [Herlihy] that no pre meeting disclosures are necessary."
A spokesman for BofA told Fortune that it is important to view the actions of the bank’s executives in context rather than in hindsight. "In mid November 2008, the Merrill projected losses for 4th qtr 2008 were estimated to be in line with Merrill losses of the prior 5 quarters. For that and other factors, inside and outside counsel determined no intra-quarter disclosure was required. Apparently, some people looking at everything a year later with perfect hindsight may think they would have made a different decision, but at the time and without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight business people and counsel made good faith decisions based on the best information and estimates available." (Requests for comment from Wachtell went unanswered.)
The irony is that had BofA’s executives simply been more diligent in understanding the implications of the omissions in the November 12 "forecast," and released the magnitude of the growing Merrill losses to BofA shareholders prior to the December 5 vote, they might have avoided accusations they violated securities laws. Some in Congress, particularly Rep. Kucinich, and some investment bankers on Wall Street believe BofA’s senior executives violated securities laws by not releasing the growing losses to shareholders. In August, Rep. Kucinich sent Mary Schapiro, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a letter urging her to investigate the potential violation.
Indeed, the lack of public disclosure to shareholders about the growing losses at Merrill Lynch deprived them of their right to have all the available, material information at the time they were asked to vote on the merger. That would seem to be a violation of securities laws. The question still hanging in the air is whether Mary Schapiro and the SEC will do anything about it.
South Africa’s inflation rate fell into the central bank’s 3 percent to 6 percent target band for the first time in more than two years, giving Governor Gill Marcus room to keep the key interest rate unchanged for longer.
Headline inflation eased to 5.9 percent in October from 6.1 percent in the previous month, the Pretoria-based statistics office said on its Web site today, in line with the median estimate of 23 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Prices were unchanged in the month.
The Reserve Bank left its repurchase rate unchanged at 7 percent for a third consecutive meeting on Nov. 17, concerned that rising electricity costs will boost inflation, just as six rate cuts since December helped to pull the economy out of recession. Inflation eased last month after the government cut gasoline costs by 5 percent on Oct. 7 as the rand’s 41 percent surge against the dollar since March 5 slashed import costs.
“It’s notable that inflation is back inside the target band,” said Jeffrey Schultz, a macroeconomic strategist at Absa Group Ltd. in Johannesburg. “But this is likely to be fleeting. The Reserve Bank is largely done with monetary easing.”
The central bank previously targeted the CPIX inflation rate, which excludes mortgage costs. That rate, which is no longer calculated, was last below 6 percent in March 2007.
Bonds gained today as investors bet a stronger rand will help to keep inflation inside the target band cash advance loan no fax. The yield on the R157 government bond, due 2015, fell 5 basis points, or 0.05 percentage point, to 8.36 percent. The rand was unchanged at 7.3987 against the dollar as of 11:51 a.m. in Johannesburg.
‘Adequate’
The Reserve Bank said on Oct. 18 that the benchmark interest rate of 7 percent is “adequate” to curb inflation and support economic growth. The bank expects the inflation rate to stay inside the target until the fourth quarter of 2011, when it is expected to average 5.5 percent.
That forecast is based on a 25 percent annual increase in electricity prices over the next two years. Eskom Holdings Ltd., the state-owned power utility, has applied to South Africa’s energy regulator to increase electricity tariffs by 45 percent a year over the next three years.
The central bank cut its key interest rate by 5 percentage points between December and August to help boost the economy, which the government expects will contract 1.9 percent in 2009. The economy expanded an annualized 0.9 percent in the third quarter from the previous three months, ending the first recession in 17 years, the statistics office said yesterday.
Banks that are considered too large to fail should be dismantled rather than “coddled,” Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said on Thursday.
Large-scale government bailouts of institutions like insurer American International Group have generated widespread controversy following last year’s global financial meltdown.
Fisher suggested the only way of ensuring that such financial giants to not pose recurrent problems is by making them smaller.
“This means finding ways not to live with ‘em and getting on with developing the least disruptive way to have them divest those parts of the ‘franchise,’ such as proprietary trading, that place the deposit and lending function at risk and otherwise present conflicts of interest,” Fisher said in prepared remarks to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank low fee cash advance.
It was one of the strongest calls to date from a sitting Fed official for an actual breaking up of large financial institutions.
Fisher also said the too-big-to-fail problem hinders the effectiveness of monetary policy, perverting incentives and contributing to financial volatility.
Even as the central bank cut interest rates sharply to deal with the crisis, the borrowing costs for banks and consumers actually climbed.
“Those banks with the greatest toxic asset losses were the quickest to freeze or reduce their lending activity,” Fisher said. “Their borrowers faced higher interest rates and restricted access to funding.”
Oil prices rallied Monday amid bets the dollar will continue to depreciate and lingering concerns that Tropical Storm Ida could disrupt production in the Gulf of Mexico.
Crude oil for December delivery jumped $2, or 2.58%, to settle at $79.43 a barrel.
The advance came as the dollar weakened broadly against rival currencies after the G-20 concluded a weekend meeting without publicly addressing the U.S. currency’s ongoing decline.
"Weakness in the dollar is what has everyone buying commodities today," said James Cordier, president of Liberty Trading Group.
The dollar index (DXY), which measures the greenback’s value against a basket of currencies, fell 0.8% to 75.03 from 75.77.
A weaker greenback makes commodities priced in dollars cheaper for buyers in other currencies.
Analysts expect the dollar to fall further given the outlook for exceptionally low interest rates in the United States and the nation’s ever-expanding budget deficit.
Tropical Storm Ida, which was downgraded from hurricane status, is expected to make landfall along the northern Gulf Coast Tuesday morning, according to the National Hurricane Center no credit check payday loans.
British Petroleum (BP) said Sunday that "some precautionary curtailment of production has taken place" in anticipation of the storm. But other energy producers, including Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A), are not expecting any supply disruptions.
Oil prices have risen from a low of about $34 last December as the global economy has shown signs of improvement, raising speculation that the world’s thirst for energy will rebound.
However, the market has struggled to push prices above this year’s high near $82 a barrel as U.S. inventories of crude oil and gasoline remain at record highs.
Cordier said he expects oil to trade in a range between "the high $70s and the low $80s."
"The weak dollar will keep it from falling, while high inventories keep it from going higher," he said.
Powered by WordPress -- XHTML 1.0