Gilbane gets industry award
BOSTON – Gilbane Building Co. of Providence has been awarded the 1999 Project Achievement Award of the construction industry for its overhaul of 225 State St. in this city. The $21 million rehabilitation project returned the 11-story, 220,000 square foot office building, to the market. The award was from the Construction Management Association of America. Gilbane was recognized for bringing the project in on time and within its budget despite operational restrictions. The site is jammed between the Central Artery project and the waterfront with little space for staging or demolition.
N.Y. Times buying Telegram & Gazette
WORCESTER – The New York Times has reached agreement with the Chronicle Publishing Co. of San Francisco to buy the Worcester Telegram & Gazette for $295 million. The Times bought the Boston Globe, New England’s largest newspaper in 1993. The Times Co. publishes 23 newspapers around the country and owns several radio and television stations. The Gazette was first published in 1866 and the Sunday Telegram began publication in 1884. Each of the papers was owned by a series of families until 1925 when the Booth and Stoddard families bought the papers. The Chronicle Co. bought the two papers in 1986 and merged them into the Telegram & Gazette in 1989. The Chronicle Co. is being sold off piece by piece, starting with the San Francisco Chronicle which was sold earlier this year to the Hearst Corp., publisher of a competing newspaper in the city the Examiner.
Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Engel & Völkers Oceanside Leader | The DiSpirito…
Learn More
Sloan grads bet their money on bagels
CAMBRIDGE – Looking for a business they could understand, two recent graduates of MIT’s Sloan School of Management have become majority partners in Finagle a Bagel, a Boston based chain of bagel bakers and retailers. Three years removed from Sloan, Laura Beth Trust and Alan Lichtman had started their quest for a bagel business in Hong Kong where Trust was working for a clothing company and yearning for a good bagel. That led her to New York in search of authenticity, then to Boston where she and Lichtman tried to hire Larry Smith, owner of Finagle a Bagel, as a consultant for their Hong Kong venture. He, in turn, persuaded them to buy a majority partnership in his business and help him expand it. They agreed and have worked out their partnership over the last year, but keeping it to themselves. With clearly defined responsibilities established the trio plans to open new stores at the rate of four or five a year, rather than the one new store a year that Smith had been doing since a proposed merger with Einstein’s Bagels several years ago fell apart.
Fleet picks Hill Holliday
BOSTON – Fleet Boston Corp. has chosen Hill Holliday Connors Cosmopoulos, Inc. the Boston-based advertising agency to represent the newly organized banking firm. Hill Holliday had been the advertising representative for BankBoston, which merged into Fleet, which was represented for many year by Arnold Communications, also of Boston. Fleet officials said that though Hill Holliday was smaller than Arnold, it had more experience representing financial institutions.
Harvard plans medical lab expansion
BOSTON – Harvard Medical School has filed plans with the city to expand its medical research space in the Longwood medical area. The expansion would be in the biomedical research space that Harvard opened in 1996 in the former English High School building. The project would provide 400,000 square feet of space next to the redeveloped high school building, according to the filing. Harvard said construction would begin in 2001 and take two years to complete.
Quest closing lab, laying off 80
WALTHAM – Quest Diagnostics, Inc., a medical diagnostic testing services provider announced that it will close its lab here and eliminate 80 jobs to effect savings in its New England operations. The lab was part of Quest’s $1.3 million purchase of SmithKline Beecham PLC’s clinical lab unit in August. Quest employs about 1,100 workers in the Boston area and a total of 25,000. A company spokesperson said some unspecified number of the Waltham employees could find jobs elsewhere in the Quest organization. The spokesperson said the plant would close at the end of the year.
Red Sox see modest returns from playoffs
BOSTON – Despite the frenzy of interest in their post-season playoff hopes, the Boston Red Sox are not expecting a windfall of profits this year. The players’ share of 60 percent of the receipts of the first three games of the five-game playoffs and the first four games of the seven game playoffs (including the World Series) takes a big chunk of the revenue from the games. Of course, the longer the playoffs last, the better the prospects for Red Sox profits. One analyst in Sports Economics at Smith College is quoted in the Boston Globe as saying the spread between income from the playoff games could range from as little as $2 million for the Sox if they are ousted quickly by the Yankees to as much as $6 million to $8 million if they make it into a seven-game World Series. The distribution of the various sources of income from the playoffs, including TV and radio rights and advertising revenue, plus concession sales, as well as ticket sales is complex already, with Major League Baseball getting a major share for distribution.
