Archive: June, 2012
Joseph N. DiStefano
GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's visit to an upper Bucks County Wawa last week was noted by Pennsylvania media for the last-minute switch that took place after ex-Gov. Ed Rendell showed up with a mob of Democrats at the original site. (See summaries and links to Inquirer and national coverage from PoliticsPA.)
National media paid more attention to Romney's Wawa message, summed this way by Josh Barro of Bloomberg LP: "The federal government should be as efficient as Wawa, he said, which allows you to order your hoagie through a touchscreen kiosk instead of talking to an employee."
Presidential candidates don't get out much to order their own sandwiches. And yes, it's easy to laugh, Barro noted.
Joseph N. DiStefano
ACTS Retirement-Life Communities Inc., of West Point, Montgomery County, says it's sold $100 milion in tax-free bonds "to refund existing debt and fund capital improvements" at some of its 23 senior housing, assisted-living and nursing facilities, which house 8,500 people in PA, DE, MD, and five Southern states. The issue was rated BBB+ by Standard and Poor's and A- by Fitch, says spokesman Michael Smith. Founded in 1971, ACTS claims yearly sales of $370 million. The chain was founded with a Fort Washington home in 1971 and has grown to be 'the largest not-for-profit" continuing care retirement communities provider in the U.S., according to the company.
Joseph N. DiStefano
A projected 7,000 drug-industry pros will mass at the Drug Information Association (DIA)'s conclave at the Pennsylvania Convention Center next week to hear speakers like Dean Kamen, inventor of the HomeChoice portable kidney dialysis unit and the Segway Human Transporter, among other gadgets.
While drug profits are under pressure, and start-up capital is scarce, industry recruiters are busier than ever as companies reorganize to cut costs, says Greg Coir, president of Woburn, Mass.-based Randstad Pharma, a $1 billion-a-year division of $20 billion multinational placement agency Randstad."We're seeing (around) a 20 percent increase in demand, year on year." The group places more than 200 people a month in US jobs, on average. That's not because drug organizations are getting larger, but because many are relying more on outsourced and contract help instead of fulltime workers who are expensive to hire, manage and lay off. Typically they're looking for "skilled, experienced" bio and chem pros, not recent college grads, Coir added.
Joseph N. DiStefano
More than 50 of Exelon Corp.'s Peco Energy employees in the Philadelphia area have registered with Fitler Square-based rideshare site Ridaroo in the first week after its June 11 introduction, offering commutes or regular trips that can be matched to other workers seeking to carpool, says Peco spokeswoman Cathy Engel Menendez. The power company tapped Ridaroo to help support its "low-carbon roadmap," along with Septa public-transportation susbsidies and other commuter programs, Engel Menendez added. The "six-month pilot" will be expanded to Exelon's national staff if it's found to be a benefit, she said. Ridaroo founders Aksel Gungor ('10 BS Fin) and Andy Guy ('07 MBA) both graduated Drexel, which "had an old-school ride-board in their career department," Gungor told me. "Students posted Post-It notes asking for rides. We approached them and suggested a better way" of "putting it online and automating the matching process."
Joseph N. DiStefano
Clearwire, the Sprint- and Comcast-owned, Bellevue Wash.-based company that operates the Clear 4G mobile-phone network, says it's hiring an additional 17 salespeople in Philadelphia as it works to boost sales in key markets. Clearwire opened its first Clear office here in 2010, and employs 37 before the new hires. The company is also adding staff in Harrisburg, New York, Boston and Providence, spokesman Chris Comes tells me. Apply at www.clearwire.apply2jobs.com
The company says it has 11 million customers in markets it serves, which covers nearly half of US households. Clear plans starting s $35 a month (most sign up for the expanded $50/month plan, says spokesman Comes.
Joseph N. DiStefano
Toll Bros. has joined Orange County Calif. landowner Shea Baker Ranch LLC in a project to develop 1,780 single-family homes and 414 apartments in three "villages" in Lake Forest, Calif., on one of the last big (200 acre) tracts left in the fabulously suburban county near Los Angels, Toll says here. Does this mark Toll's return to high-end suburban sprawl, after a recessionary re-focus on apartments in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Philadelphia, Seattle and other urban markets?
Toll's single-family-homes percentage has fallen from 72% in 2003 to 53% in 2011. More here.
Joseph N. DiStefano
PA Gov. Tom Corbett said today that 10,000-dollar-store chain Dollar General Corp. will hire 500 workers for its new $100 million, 900,000 sq ft warehouse distibution center at Berks Park 78 in Bethel Township west of Reading.
“My goal is simple: to make sure there is a job out there for every Pennsylvanian who wants one,” said Corbett in a statement announcing the move. He predicted 75 truck-driving jobs will also be attracted to the site, which is located in the free-Interstate-highway belt that makes Pennsylvania America's Warehouse.
The state offered Dollar General $2.2 milllion in grants, job training funds and hiring tax credits. The Tennessee-based, publicly-traded store chain collected $767 million in profits on sales of $14.8 billion last year.
Joseph N. DiStefano
(UPDATE with comment by report co-author at bottom) The 4 million sq ft of office space along US 202 and other main roads in Tredyffrin, the most populous township in Pennsylvania's wealthiest county (home to Paoli, Chesterbrook, south Valley Forge, and the parts of Wayne, Strafford, Devon and Berwyn north of the Main Line tracks), was mostly built in the 1980s or earlier and is "in danger of becoming outdated," warns Monday's report by the Chester County township's Business Development Advisory Council.
"As this office stock has aged" and corporate tenants departed, "vacancy rates will likely climb and building values will likely decline," the committee warned in its report, which you can read here.
Joseph N. DiStefano
Holtec International, a Marlton-based, $500 million (annual sales) nuclear power plant fuel-storage equipment manufacturer, says it has joined nuclear suppliers Areva USA and Shaw Group in applying for $542 million in matching funds that the US Department of Energy plans to award "to spur the rise of domestic nuclear design and supply capability" by US companies. Holtec's SMR LLC unit (it stands for Small Modular Reactor) has designed a 160-megawatt "passive" underground nuclear plant -- safer, says boss Kris Singh, than the storm-wrecked Fukushima reactors in Japan because "if there's a problem it will shut itself down."
The firm hopes US aid will finance the first unit on a site at the federal government's former Savannah River nuclear missile complex in South Carolina, SMR boss Pierre Oneid told me. South Carolina Power & Gas has agreed "in principle" to operate the reactor and buy power from the plant, Singh said.
Joseph N. DiStefano
Villanova apartment landlord David Della Porta's Cornerstone Communities has paid $9.8 million for the 64-unit Greentree building (including a restaurant and two stores) at High and Gay Streets in downtown West Chester, to developers Victor Abdala and Tony Stancato, best known for bringing Delaware-based Iron Hil Brewery and other retailers to the Chester County borough as the college town moved upscale in the 2000s. Marcus & Milllichap brokers including apartment specialists Mark Thomson and Zachary Pierce, and retail-investment specialists Matthew Gorman and Michael Shover negotiated the sale.
The firm said the $9.8 million price represents a capitailzation ratio of 7, implying monthly rent of nearly $900/apartment. In a statement Della Porta promised "additional improvements" and didn't mention new target rents.
