Swiss central bank interim Chairman Thomas Jordan
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They were lined up 300 deep before the store opened at 8 a.m.
Fans of Maple Leaf Gardens and Loblaws came to see how Canada’s most famous hockey arena looked now that it’s home to the supermarket chain’s newest urban grocery store.
They came from outside the city, from places like Malton, or from Toronto neighbourhoods, like Forest Hill and Riverdale. Ordinary citizens, hockey players and local politicians were among the first customers.
They weren’t disappointed.
The store, with its soaring ceilings, blonde wood, grey concrete and black tiles, forms a hip urban backdrop to a smorgasbord of fresh and prepared food the company hopes will cement its reputation as a leader in food retailing.
“The Loblaw store you’re about to shop, in our judgment, re-imagines a large urban supermarket at once recognizing the diversity of the neighbourhood that surrounds it and the national significance of the site,” Loblaw executive chairman Galen G. Weston said just prior to the opening.
The store pays homage to its past as Canada’s best known hockey arena, from the original lights, exposed brick and Maple Leaf-shaped wall sculpture in the atrium made from arena seats to the red dot on the floor in aisle 25 that marks centre ice.
But it’s also Loblaw’s biggest bet on its future since Weston took over from his father, W. Galen Weston, five years ago.
The store is the first full-service conventional grocery store the company has built in 12 years, Weston told reporters. It follows an ill-fated expansion into superstores that carried both food and general merchandise.
“I’m a Leaf fan. I’ve been a season ticket holder for over 30 years. I saw games here. This has great memories for me. I’m really happy they left a big historical site,” said Mike Seiden, who lives in Forest Hill but came down to see what the buzz was all about.
“I met Galen Weston. And his wife. I got a picture with him. He was signing autographs,” Seiden added. “He’s a great guy. I love him.”
Paula Firmino and Reg McLean, who live in Toronto’s Riverdale neighborhood, also stopped to congratulate Weston on the store and get their picture taken with him payday loan.
“After all the hype I wanted to see what it was really like. I love it. What they’ve done here is make it an experience to shop,” Firmino said.
“There was such a shortage of grocery stores downtown for many years. Now, with all the condos being built, it’s nice to have a place to walk to and shop, other than those tiny little places everywhere where everything is very expensive and you don’t get much of a selection,” McLean added.
Former city councilor Kyle Rae, who represented the area, said he was delighted with how the store had turned out. “The attention to detail is remarkable. For the community, it’s a real win, a great grocery store. For the rest of the city it’s going to be a destination to come and see what’s been done here.”
Former Toronto Maple Leafs hockey player Dickie Duff recalled how the Gardens was home to him for the 10 years he played with the Leafs in the 1950s and ‘60s.
“The Loblaw guys deserve a lot of credit. They’ve done a super nice job,” said Duff, who clinched the 1962 Stanley Cup for the Leafs when he scored the winning goal against the Chicago Blackhawks in Game 6.
Some of the store’s features, such as its in-house executive chef and kitchen, will be unique to the Gardens location, said Jane Marshall, executive vice-president of Loblaw Properties division.
The kitchen serves the “Canteen,” which serves “prêt-a-manger” style fresh ready made sandwiches and salads.
The store features a sushi bar run by its subsidiary T&T Supermarkets, an Asian food chain.
The store serves a potential market of about 100,000 people, who live in the area, and another 25 to 30 per cent who work in the surrounding office towers and retail outlets, Marshall said.
It’s also the only downtown grocery store with parking, she noted. One of the biggest challenges of the renovation was digging under the building to add 154 underground parking spaces, she said.
At 82,000 square feet, the store is considered large by inner city standards though Loblaw operates bigger stores in suburban markets.
If all goes as planned, the long-vacant Jefferson Arms will pulse with activity after a $106 million transformation that will convert it to a home for hundreds of young educators and a regional headquarters of Teach for America.
Work could begin next summer if McGowan Brothers Development meets its timetable for getting federal new markets tax credits and other public incentives as part of the financing to renovate what is among downtown’s largest empty buildings. Construction would take about 18 months, said Tim McGowan, who runs the company with brothers Bill, Seamus and Sean.
“The plan for the building is pretty much to bring it back to its original form,” McGowan said.
Removal of exterior panels installed in the 1950s on the two lower floors and replication of the terra cotta beneath is part of the plan, he said. McGowan Development also plans to restore the two-level lobby atrium, damaged from a leaky roof, and install a rooftop pool.
Key to the project is the agreement by Teach for America to move its St. Louis operation to the building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Scott Baier, the organization’s executive director in St. Louis, said Teach for America had agreed to occupy 5,000 square feet of space at the rehabbed Jefferson Arms. The agreement includes plans to later increase the space by an additional 6,000 square feet. Baier said Teach for America was outgrowing its current office at 1204 Washington Avenue.
Even more important to McGowan Development than filling some office space is the potential of renting hundreds of Jefferson Arms apartments to young teachers. McGowan said those doing their two-year Teach for America commitment to teach in inner-city schools would be able stretch their $36,000 salaries by paying cut-rate rent of about $675 a month for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom loft apartment.
Baier said as many as 150 new teachers would arrive in St. Louis in 2014, when the redone Jefferson Arms should be ready. McGowan said he hopes 250 teachers will eventually live in the building. The rehabbed building would have 450 to 500 apartments. Those not rented to teachers will be offered at market rates, McGowan said.
Pyramid Construction, the once high-flying downtown developer, paid $19 million for Jefferson Arms in 2006 and had planned to convert it to condos for senior housing. Pyramid collapsed in 2008 without starting work on the project although it cleared the building of tenants. Since then, the building has sat empty.
McGowan Development is trying to revive the building with David Jump, the investor who bought the 13-story, 500,000-square-foot building last year. An arm of Citicorp, which foreclosed on the block-wide building in 2009 for $5.5 million, sold it to AB Acres, a corporation held by Jump.
The building occupies a prime spot on Tucker Boulevard and is among downtown’s most historic structures. Built as the Hotel Jefferson, it went up in time for the 1904 World’s Fair. The then-posh, 400-room establishment was the headquarters hotel for the 1904 and 1916 Democratic Party national conventions. It was later expanded to more than 900 rooms and hosted a who’s who of notable visitors for decades before sliding into disrepair.
McGowan said the building’s 360-car garage, part of the hotel’s 1920s expansion and remarkable then for its innovative design, was an important part of the new project. The garage’s parking fees cover the current debt service and taxes on the Jefferson Arms, he said.
But the project is more about people than cars. McGowan said he hoped Teach for America would draw additional education-related nonprofits that would fill one-time hotel space and provide business for a conference center planned in what had been the hotel’s “grand hall.” A charter school would be another welcome component, he said.
Availability of a large conference center would increase the number of meetings Teach for America holds in St. Louis, Baier said. Cost is a big factor, said Baier, adding that a conference site this year in Kansas City was a $55 cab ride from the airport. In comparison, downtown St. Louis has competitive hotel rates and is a $3.75 MetroLink ride from Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, he noted.
Baier said the decision to move to the Jefferson Arms grew out of conversations with U.S. Bancorp’s Community Development Corp., which has invested in several downtown projects. Zack Boyers, the corporation’s chief executive, put Baier in touch with the McGowans.
“For us, it’s a win-win,” Baier said. “We love working with these guys.”
Matt Philpott, director of the development corporation’s New Markets program, said the redone Jefferson Arms “would bring a lot of people and activity to downtown” and increase demand for more services nearby.
The St. Louis project is modeled in part after Teach for America’s home in Baltimore.
Seawall Development of Baltimore spent about $20 million to renovate an abandoned can factory near Johns Hopkins University as Miller’s Court, which houses Teach for America’s Baltimore office, other nonprofits and about 100 apartments. Thibault Manekin, a Seawall principal, said the McGowans visited Miller’s Court this year.
“They spent the day with us, just touring around and brainstorming,” Manekin said.
New markets, plus state and historic preservation tax credits, are essential to such projects, said Manekin, adding that in exchange for incentives, the developments spur neighborhood revitalization.
Miller’s Court, opened in 2009, brought together from across the country new teachers who had been unfamiliar with Baltimore before joining Teach for America. The project also returned an abandoned building to active use and helped revive what had been a “forgotten” neighborhood, Manekin said.
Courtney Cass, Teach for America’s leader in Baltimore, said teachers with her group occupy about 70 apartments at Miller’s Court. The building has a waiting list, she added.
She and Baier said that many teachers stayed in their new cities after they completed their Teach for America work. Some continue to teach; others start businesses. In any event, the young, college-educated people energize their new home cities, Cass and Baier said.
“Getting top talent to stay here is what is really important,” Baier said.
India’s privately owned Kingfisher Airlines was forced to cancel dozens of flights Friday amid a burgeoning crisis at the country’s second-largest carrier.
Kingfisher, which is partly owned by brewery tycoon Vijay Mallya, has canceled more than 120 flights this week as pilots and crew called in sick after their October salaries were delayed.
The airline says flights were canceled because it was reconfiguring planes, the Press Trust of India reported. The Economic Times reported that leasing companies want Kingfisher to return their planes after the company fell behind on payments.
Kingfisher shares slid more than 12 percent on the Mumbai stock market Friday.
India’s airline industry has been hit by rising fuel costs and a crushing price war. Kingfisher is currently struggling under debt of $1.4 billion and shut down its budget carrier in September after it ran up losses payday loan lenders.
The airline, which began operations in 2005, bought India’s first budget airline Deccan Airways in 2008, leading to the creation of its budget wing, Kingfisher Red.
Kingfisher’s problems have worsened after three oil companies stopped giving it jet fuel on credit and asked the airline to make daily payments.
The airline has grounded eight of its leased turboprop ATR aircraft, and returned 14 leased A320 jets, leaving it with fewer aircraft in its fleet.
The cash-strapped airline has also piled up unpaid fees to airport operators and other agencies who are now adding to its financial pressures.
Kingfisher has said it is restructuring its operations.
Nicaraguan president and one-time Sandinista revolutionary Daniel Ortega appears headed for victory Sunday in an election that his critics say could be the prelude to a presidency-for-life.
Since returning to power in 2007, the 65-year-old Ortega has boosted his popularity in Central America’s poorest country with a combination of pork-barrel populism and support for the free-market economy he once opposed.
Now, riding on a populist platform and World Bank praise for his economic strategies, he seeks a third term _ his second consecutive one _ after the Sandinista majority on the Supreme Court overruled the term limits set by the Nicaraguan constitution.
With nearly 50 percent of voter support and an 18-point lead over his nearest challenger in the most recent poll, Ortega could end up with a mandate that would not only legitimize his re-election but allow him to make constitutional changes guaranteeing perpetual re-election.
He leads his closest competitor, opposition radio station owner Fabio Gadea of the Liberal Independent Party, by 18 points. Conservative Arnoldo Aleman, a former president and perennial candidate, has 11 percent support in the poll taken between Oct. 10-17 with a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.
Ortega led the Sandinista movement that overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, and withstood a concerted effort by the U.S. government, which viewed him as a Soviet-backed threat, to oust him through a rebel force called the Contras.
The fiery, mustachioed leftist ruled through a junta, then was elected in 1984 but was defeated after one term in 1990. After two more failed runs, he softened his rhetoric, took a free-market stance, and regained the presidency in the 2006 election.
To his supporters, he is just plain Daniel, while opponents say that in his new incarnation, he has espoused “Orteguismo,” a politics of personality based on Christianity, socialism and free enterprise.
In his most recent term, Ortega has built wide support among the youth and the poor in a country of 5.8 million people, more than 40 percent of whom live on less than $2 a day.
He also has maintained ties to the U.S. even as he has grown closer to Venezuelan socialist President Hugo Chavez, signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement and cultivated Nicaragua’s large business sector. Per capita income, one of the lowest in Latin America, has grown steadily since 2006, according to the World Bank, which has praised Ortega’s macroeconomic policies as “broadly favorable.”
Still, he has been helped immensely by Chavez, who according to estimates has provided at least $500 million a year in discounted oil and outright donations.
Many warn his success comes at democracy’s expense. Claims of widespread fraud in the 2008 municipal elections led Washington to cancel $62 million in development aid.
The 2006 election drew more than 18,000 election observers. This time election observation is much more difficult and local observers are being denied credentials.
The European Union and the Organization of America States have negotiated access to Sunday’s vote. The Carter Center, whose Nicaragua delegation was led by former President Jimmy Carter in 2006, has elected not to observe because of the restrictions.
SSM Health Care-St. Louis named Robert William “Bill” Hoefer as the next president of St. Clare Health Center in Fenton. He will begin his duties on Jan. 3.
In addition to leading the 174-bed hospital, which opened in 2009, Hoefer will serve as service line executive for the SSM Neurosciences Institute.
For the past four years, Hoefer has been vice president of operations for Sentara Norfolk General Hospital no fax payday loans. He has a master’s degree in health care administration from the Washington University School of Medicine.
Ameren Corp. says stricter clean air rules that take effect next year are forcing it to shutter two of its oldest Illinois power plants by the year’s end and eliminate 90 jobs.
The 70-year-old plants at Meredosia and Hutsonville, Ill., have run sporadically over the past few years because they are the least efficient in the company’s fleet and don’t produce electricity cheap enough to sell in a weak power market.
Ameren said new regulations finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency this summer were the primary reason it was choosing to permanently mothball them. The rules require steep cuts in power plant emissions that contribute to ozone and fine particle pollution. To a lesser extent, the company said, it’s hamstrung by the regional grid operator’s rules that prevent it from selling the plant’s generating capacity more than a year in advance.
“We cannot continue to economically operate these units,” Steven R. Sullivan, head of Ameren Energy Resources Co., said in a statement. “Numerous options to bring these units into compliance were explored, including installing additional environmental controls, but the costs were just too high to be justified.”
Utilities across the country have announced the closure of dozens of older coal-fired power plants in recent weeks, frequently blaming EPA regulations Payday Loan for Bad Credit. The closures and related job losses have become political fodder for conservative lawmakers who assert that the regulatory agenda by the administration of President Barack Obama is damaging an already feeble economy.
Environmental and public health advocacy groups reject the argument.
“It’s wildly disingenuous,” said Henry Henderson, who heads the Natural Resources Defense Counsel’s Chicago office. “There is a design life to engineered equipment, and these old plants are past their design life.”
The older coal plants being shut down around the country are the dirtiest and most responsible for poor air quality and respiratory disease linked to thousands of premature deaths, he said. Also, lost generation capacity is being replaced by new renewable energy sources and energy efficiency projects, which are creating new jobs.
Ameren’s Meredosia plant, about an hour west of Springfield, dates to the 1940s.
The plant began generating electricity in 1948, and additional generating capacity was installed incrementally until the mid-1970s.
Ameren has already closed two of Meredosia’s four units. One of the units runs on coal, the other on fuel oil. Together they can generate 369 megawatts
Democrats on a special congressional debt-reduction supercommittee want it to include jobs creation as part of its work, a task that would complicate the newly created panel’s already formidable assignment.
The bipartisan, 12-member committee was scheduled to hold its opening meeting Thursday, a session that was supposed to be limited to opening statements and approval of its rules. The initial meeting was expected to be far less rancorous than this summer’s bitter partisan brawl over extending the federal debt ceiling, which ended with a deal between President Barack Obama and lawmakers that created the supercommittee.
The panel is charged with finding, by Thanksgiving, $1.5 trillion in savings over the next decade, no easy task given the capital’s sharp partisan divisions. Democrats want to produce a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases. Republicans have insisted they would oppose tax increases, though some have indicated they might accept the closing of some tax loopholes.
“Failure is not an option,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday. He said congressional leaders have appointed serious lawmakers to the panel, “and we fully anticipate they will meet their goals. And we’ll see whether they can even go beyond that.”
Many in Washington, though, are pessimistic that the panel will take a serious bite out of the nation’s enormous $14 trillion in accumulated debt, especially with next year’s elections approaching. They note that Democrats are ardently against cuts in expensive benefits like Medicare while Republicans are adamantly against higher taxes _ the two most plentiful sources of potential budget savings.
“Politically, there’s not a lot of motivation on either side” to produce a major package, said Chris Krueger, a political analyst for the brokerage firm MF Global.
Some Democrats on the supercommittee, though, want it to go even further and address voters’ angst over the nation’s stubborn unemployment problem. With the government reporting that the economy essentially stopped generating jobs last month, next year’s presidential and congressional elections are pressuring lawmakers to do something about it.
“It’s part of recovery,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., a supercommittee member who said in a brief interview that he wanted the panel to tackle job creation. “Growth will create revenue,” which would help reduce the debt.
“I’m not saying it will be easy, but it should be addressed,” he said.
Another supercommittee member, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., asked whether he wanted the panel to tackle job creation, said he “may lay out that thought” at Thursday’s meeting.
“I don’t think you can reduce the deficit of the country to the scope that we need to without growth” of the economy, he said.
A third Democrat on the special committee, Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., wrote an opinion essay this week in The Washington Post saying deficit reduction must have three components: jobs, cuts and revenue.
None of the Democrats specified what job creation program they might favor.
Part of that answer might come Thursday evening when Obama delivers an address on jobs to a joint session of Congress. He is expected to propose extending a reduction in the payroll tax that will otherwise expire, giving tax incentives to companies that hire the jobless and boosting spending on public works.
Republicans would be likely to oppose adding spending to the committee’s debt-reduction effort.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., a supercommittee member, said debt reduction would create jobs because reducing the federal debt would help the economy grow.
“Overspending has really spooked the markets and made it more difficult for employers to have confidence to invest and hire people and create jobs,” Camp said in an interview.
Under the debt ceiling agreement, which narrowly averted a potential federal default, Congress must approve at least $1.2 trillion in savings by Christmas. If it doesn’t, the difference would be made up by automatic spending cuts, divided evenly among defense and many domestic programs.
Behind the scenes, the supercommittee’s work has already begun. Republicans and Democrats each held closed-door, daylong strategy sessions on Wednesday. Boehner, R-Ohio, attended part of the GOP meeting, highlighting the importance of the panel’s work.
Democratic aides to the House Ways and Means Committee have produced documents listing possible options for revenue increases and savings from health care programs, including many that were discussed in previous deficit-reduction talks.
The options, which a Ways and Means spokesman said have not been discussed by lawmakers, include various tax increases on the wealthy, oil companies and businesses that transfer some assets overseas, and savings from Medicare, including trimming reimbursements to health care providers and gradually raising the program’s eligibility age to 67 _ which the documents call “a radical departure from current policy.”
Though he has no formal role in the supercommittee’s work, Obama plans to soon give the lawmakers his own debt-reduction plans. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday that the president’s ideas will be “bigger, in fact, than has been mandated for the supercommittee.”
A second public meeting of the committee is set for next Tuesday, when the head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, will explain how the government’s debt got so huge.
The panel has six members each from the House and Senate, evenly divided by party.