The Business Journal-Milwaukee articles from March 1998

The Business Journal-Milwaukee archives from March 1998

Zell REIT buying apartments for $98 million. (Equity Residential Properties Trust)
March 27, 1998... A group of limited partnerships involving Milwaukee developer Barry Mandel is selling a portfolio of 1,371 apartments in Milwaukee, Chicago and Minneapolis to Equity Residential Property Trust, Chicago, in a transaction valued at approximately...

Marriage jitters: local firms weigh pros and cons of AMEX, NASDAQ merger. (American Stock Exchange)
March 27, 1998... Art Thompson's fax machine has been jammed with messages from the NASDAQ Stock Market. Each facsimile reassures him that Hallmark Capital Corp., the West Allis bank holding company for which Thompson is chief financial officer, won't see any...

Over the crisis, or over the edge, fewer default on loans.
March 27, 1998... Early signs of an easing in the number of bankruptcy filings are starting to surface around Milwaukee in the form of declining default rates. Banks and federal guarantee agencies have seen defaults on consumer loans, credit cards and...

Rayovac plans to recharge its battery sales. (restructuring plan to strengthen market position)
March 27, 1998... Rayovac Corp.'s restructuring plan is the latest in a series of moves to strengthen the battery maker's position in markets dominated by industry heavyweights Eveready Battery Co. and Duracell International Inc. The plan, which Rayovac...

Wisconsin companies send more goods south of border.
March 27, 1998... EXPORT OPPORTUNITIES Wisconsin's Export Amount Amount Since Year (millions) (millions) 1996 1988 $4,725 Canada $3,766 +13.6%...

Bando McGlocklin exhales after spinning off Pewaukee bank. (Bando McGlocklin Capital Corp.; InvestorsBancorp)
March 27, 1998... Now that InvestorsBancorp, Pewaukee, is up and running, its sister company is searching for a new line of business. Bando McGlocklin Capital Corp., a real estate investment trust (REIT) that spawned Investors last August, has spent years...

Partners pursue central city bank. (Margaret Henningsen, Linda Bedford and Shirley Lanier of Legacy Bancorp are negotiating to buy a branch of Firstar Bank Milwaukee N.A.)
March 27, 1998... Three partners are negotiating to buy a branch of Firstar Bank in Milwaukee's central city. The partners of Legacy Bancorp - Margaret Henningsen, Linda Bedford and Shirley Lanier, all of whom are black women - say they intend to provide...

Valley downtowns battle malls, freeway growth.(Focus on Business in Fox Valley and Green Bay)
March 27, 1998... Unique products, service, small-town values keep them competitive with suburban developments When brothers Peter and Bob Gillespie were considering downtown Neenah as a location for their upscale furniture store in 1984, they were not...

Reinventing Oshkosh Truck: acquisitions help Bohn wean manufacturer from reliance on defense contracts.(Focus on Business in Fox Valley and Green Bay)
March 27, 1998... The restructuring of Oshkosh Truck Corp. into three main parts is the quintessential example of how a defense contractor can reinvent itself post-Cold War. Robert Bohn has masterminded much of the reinvention. When Bohn came to Oshkosh...

Case workers authorize strike. (United Auto Workers; Case Corp.)
March 20, 1998... United Auto Workers members have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike at Case Corp. if contract negotiations break down between the union and the Racine farm equipment maker. UAW officials haven't indicated they plan to call a strike,...

Brookfield business center planned. (Wisconsin)
March 20, 1998... A Milwaukee-area development team hopes to start construction in July of the first phase of Eastgate Business Centre, a multiphase, light industrial and office project on 21 acres of prime Brookfield real estate. Vanguard Computers Inc., a...

Ruth's Chris to open. (Ruth's Chris Steak House in downtown Milwaukee)
March 20, 1998... A Baton Rouge, La., restaurant holding company plans to open a Ruth's Chris Steak House in downtown Milwaukee and is actively scouting sites. T.J. Moran & Associates Inc. owns six Ruth's Chris franchises, including one in Chicago and one in...

Cashing in on El Nino. (energy savings)
March 20, 1998... Warm winter helped lower energy costs The winter of 1997-98 is one of content for anybody paying energy bills. A combination of declining motor and heating fuel prices and an unseasonably warm winter translates into a financial windfall...

Year 2000 problem hits credit card issuers.
March 20, 1998... The purchase could be for airline tickets or bath towels. The clerk takes the customer's credit card as payment, runs it through for approval, and the machine flashes "Denied." It's not a past-due payment or a bulging balance. It's the...

A credit union to bank on: Bank of Galesville considers forming employee credit union.
March 20, 1998... If all it takes to form a credit union is a group of employees willing to support it with deposits and loans, the Bank of Galesville meets all the requirements, its executives say. A bank seeking a credit union charter is just the latest...

Spurning fees, banks raise minimum ATM withdrawals. (automated teller machine)
March 20, 1998... Most Milwaukee-area banks have discovered a way to pay for automated teller machines: charge a fee to non-bank customers who withdraw cash from the money dispensers. But a number of banks still don't charge depositors from other banks to use...

Wisconsin immune from insurance portability problems.
March 20, 1998... A new federal law that was supposed to make it easier for people to obtain health insurance is not working the way it was intended, a recent federal report says. However, state insurance regulators say Wisconsin has not had the problems...

Tool or die. (BesTech Tool Corp.)(Company Profile)
March 20, 1998... Investments in equipment and employees help new owners revive company Two days after buying Ward Tool & Die, Mike Korneli and Frank Fellenz were taken by surprise. The West Bend company was three months late on a job for a metal fabricator,...

Bradley Center loses money again. (Milwaukee, WI sports and entertainment center)
March 13, 1998... The Bradley Center lost $2.24 million in fiscal 1997, finishing in the red for the ninth consecutive year. The Milwaukee sports and entertainment center's 1997 losses were $556,000 more than the previous year's debts. Total revenue from...

Building binge hits office market.
March 13, 1998... [TABULAR DATA OMITTED] At least 13 metro Milwaukee office projects, comprising more than 750,000 square feet in all, are scheduled to open in 1998, dramatically eliminating the scarcity of new office space that has existed for most of the...

Steeltech loses contract. (Steeltech Manufacturing Inc)
March 13, 1998... Steeltech Manufacturing Inc. will lose another major piece of business early next year, raising more questions about the troubled company's future. Tower Automotive Inc., which manufactures car and truck frames at a plant on Milwaukee's...

Sewerage workers wait for decision on pensions.
March 13, 1998... About 300 Milwaukee sewerage workers could wait six months or more before they learn the fate of their retirement benefits. The Milwaukee Employees Retirement, Pension & Annuity Board has requested permission from the Internal Revenue Service...

State changes tax method for telecommunications companies.
March 13, 1998... Telecommunications companies operating in Wisconsin are busy taking inventory of their land, buildings, cables, switches and other equipment to prepare for their first-ever tax bills based on personal property, rather than gross receipts....

The American dream is a Ghost. (computer software utility)
March 13, 1998... Struggling entrepreneur strikes it rich with software utility Historians likely will recount the final 20 years of the 20th century as one of the great entrepreneurial epochs of all time, a period in which emerging technologies spawned an...

Eye on you. (security systems for businesses)
March 13, 1998... Security systems proliferate in Milwaukee businesses Some people scoff at the proliferation of surveillance cameras, or Big Brother, keeping an eye on workers and shoppers. However, a growing number of businesses are finding that security...

Opus North continues aggressive development.(Company Profile)
March 13, 1998... This week, tenants began moving into Honey Creek Corporate Center, following completion of the first phase of Opus North Corp.'s three-phase office development at North 84th Street and Interstate 94 in Milwaukee. For Opus North, Honey...

Estimating goes on-line at new Berghammer site.
March 13, 1998... A Buffer building contractor has brought the Internet to the local construction industry with a Web site that gives users an approximate project cost on-line. After a user keys in information about his or her company and provides parameters...

Illinois REIT to build $11.4 million office building. (real estate investment trust, Great Lakes REIT Inc.)
March 6, 1998... Great Lakes REIT Inc. is about to become the first real estate investment trust to develop a speculative office building in the metro Milwaukee market, with the construction of an $11.4 million office building in the town of Pewaukee. Oak...

Fever pitch: Brewers use transition years to boost season ticket sales. (season tickets to the Milwaukee County Stadium)
March 6, 1998... Hank Aaron. Jackie Robinson. Sandy Koufax. Nolan Ryan. Ernie Banks. Those are the images Bob Voight evokes when he talks about Milwaukee County Stadium. A sense of nostalgia about the men who have played in that stadium drives Voight to fill...

Banc One Capital hit by resignations: 14 quit bond unit, face lawsuit.
March 6, 1998... A mass exodus has left Banc One Capital Corp.'s Milwaukee and Chicago offices without a public finance division to handle municipal bond underwriting. The 14 former employees now face a lawsuit, according to Banc One Capital executives in...

Aurora's Howe defends new Kenosha hospital. (Aurora Health Care's Pres. G. Edwin Howe)
March 6, 1998... Aurora Health Care is building a $20 million hospital in Kenosha to meet its obligations under managed care contracts in that city, Aurora's top executive said. But while Aurora president G. Edwin Howe said the decision to build a 44-bed...

Briggs workers still waiting for more die-casting work. (Briggs & Stratton Corp.)
March 6, 1998... When Briggs & Stratton Corp. and the United Paperworkers International Union agreed to a new labor contract about a year ago, the company told the union it would bring in new die-casting work that would protect - and even add - jobs in...

Palermo plans new office tower at 1000 Water. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin real estate investor Anthony Palermo)
March 6, 1998... In a development that promises to have a major impact on the metropolitan Milwaukee office market, local real estate investor Anthony Palermo has announced plans to build a second office tower at 1000 Water, expanding the building by as much as...

W-2 boom: child care centers expand in Milwaukee.
March 6, 1998... Entrepreneurs and nonprofit groups are scampering to open child care facilities in Milwaukee County to meet the demand created by Wisconsin's welfare-to-work (W-2) program. From December 1996 through December 1997, the number of licensed...

Fallout of peace: Milwaukee manufacturers adapt to loss of defense contracts.
March 6, 1998... When the Berlin Wall fell and communism collapsed, Max Dermond knew it was time to think about diversifying his business. Dermond's company, DRS Inc., overhauled aircraft parts and, at the time, relied on military business for all of its...

Buell Motorcycle's president hopes to throttle sales. (Jerry Wilke)
March 6, 1998... When Jerry Wilke took over as president and chief operating officer of Buell Motorcycle Co. last June, he knew the job would test his marketing prowess in new ways. For 22 years, Wilke had climbed through the sales and marketing ranks at...