San Francisco Business Times articles from December 2000

San Francisco Business Times archives from December 2000

Cal, Stanford back housing to gain brains.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Universities offer finance breaks to keep faculty from being priced out of the market The Bay Area's leading universities are introducing significant new financial aid packages -- for their faculty. The programs are being created to...

Battle rages for Oakland.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Real estate brokerages muscle up, poach talent to rule red-hot market Real estate brokerage firms are trying to play catch-up with Oakland's growth, and the race is on to raid brokerage talent and find new office space. Grubb & Ellis...

Startups go on hunt for bright ideas.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Two Bay Area firms are among an online rush hoping to turn bright ideas into cash by hooking up inventors with corporations eager to acquire hot products or processes. Like their competitors (see box, Page 49), San Francisco-based...

Pay ball! Giants, A's boost ticket prices.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Title victories and players' salaries leave fans with high-and-tight pitch It's one, two, three dollars more for the ol' ball game, as ticket prices for the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's will surge for the 2001 campaign. The...

Houston's Hines scoots in under Prop. M cap.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Developer Hines plans to scoop up 535 Mission St., one of the last fully entitled development sites in San Francisco, according to sources close to the deal. The 16,000-square-foot site, on Mission between First and Second streets, is...

Still hatching, not brooding.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Incubator idealab shrugs off misfortunes to plow ahead with Bay Area expansion I dealab isn't letting its canceled IPO, investors' disenchantment with incubators or a string of dud dot-com investments deter it from expanding in the Bay...

South S.F. biotech scores a third-round knockout.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Cytokinetics raises $55 million more to bankroll its quest to develop drugs faster by looking inside cells A South San Francisco biotech company that aims to speed drug development by looking inside individual cells has raised $55 million...

Investors shell out for offices on Peninsula.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Two investors plan to snap up two Redwood Shores office complexes, each paying close to $400 a square foot for the properties. Divco West Properties of San Jose plans to purchase Redwood Shores office complex Shore Breeze for $93 million or...

S.F. store turns out to be no Riviera for Club Monaco.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... San Francisco's retail climate is apparently too chilly for Club Monaco. It's been obvious for months that the Ralph Lauren-owned clothier, which planned to build a 16,000-square-foot flagship in a high-profile Union Square location, was...

Giants of the Internet.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Just when it looked like the San Francisco Giants' Double Play Ticket Window was going to get thrown out, Tickets.com stole home. The Giants' heralded online ticket resale system for charter season-ticketholders had rounded its first season...

Sign of the times.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Stuck in another Highway 101 traffic jam, and visually assaulted by the flashing 34-foot-by-19-foot flashing hulk of a sign near Whipple Avenue in San Carlos, motorists have occasionally wondered how Siliconview.com ever got permission to put...

Oakland starts talks with Ellis over square.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Ellis Partners is entering exclusive negotiations with the Port of Oakland to be the master developer at Jack London Square. The port's commissioners voted 7-0 Nov. 21 to enter exclusive talks with Ellis on the $200 million project. The...

Colorado telecom scouts out S.F.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Level 3 Communications Inc. is scouting sites in San Francisco to house a telecommunications center of at least 100,000 square feet with up to 50 employees. Broomfield, Colo.-based Level 3, which is represented by Don Shaver of ITT...

Alza strengthens sales with repackaged drugs.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Following a proven prescription of repackaging thrice-daily drugs into once-a-day wonders, local biotech Alza has pitched its Concerta drug into a hot $750 million market to capture a 10 percent share. Concerta -- an attention deficit...

CORRECTIONS.
December 1, 2000... A headline in the Nov. 24-30 issue should have identified ExciteAtHome's retail self-install kits as being for cable modem service.

$33M supercomputer finds home in Oakland.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... The world's most powerful supercomputer used for nonclassified research is coming to downtown Oakland. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is filling part of its new Oakland Scientific Facility with a $33 million IBM computer that is...

One magazine puts design first.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Buoyed by $6 million in venture capital and a few high-profile partnerships, One magazine hopes to make a splash in the design world when it hits newsstands Dec. 5. "This celebrates design in every aspect of life, and it will have a broad...

Two years after big merger, Cal Fed hungry for more.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... California Federal Bank's owners are returning to acquisition mode after two years of digesting the merger that created the nation's second-largest thrift. "We have a list, but nothing's imminent," said Carl Webb, president and chief...

Dorman to head AT&T Corp.(David Dorman)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... AT&T Corp. said it appointed former Pacific Bell CEO David Dorman as its new president. Dorman will be responsible for the company's core consumer and business service units as well as its network services group, international ventures and AT&T...

The Sprout Group closes fund.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... The Sprout Group, which has offices in Menlo Park, New York and Chicago, announced it has closed a $1.6 billion technology fund, making it the seventh-largest formed this year. The venture capital arm of Credit Suisse First Boston will invest...

Napster-user tracker launched.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Redwood City-based EMusic.com launched a program to track down users who share illegal copies of music downloaded from the popular file-sharing site, Napster. EMusic's technology will keep record of the song-swapper's IP address and Napster...

Investment bank expands to S.F.(Fox-Pitt Kelton)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Fox-Pitt Kelton Inc., a unit of insurance giant Swiss Re, has opened an office in San Francisco's Financial District. The office will provide brokerage and investment banking services to clients in the western half of the United States. Bruce...

Wells conversions on track.(Wells Fargo bank account conversions)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... Wells Fargo & Co. has converted 8.6 million California banking accounts to new computer systems -- the largest conversion resulting from the 1998 merger with Minneapolis' Norwest Inc. that created the nation's seventh-largest bank. San...

Ex-Clinton spokesman joins Oracle.(Joe Lockhart)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Redwood City's Oracle Corp. appointed former White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart senior vice president, handling communications strategy. The appointment comes as the software giant tries to put a cloud of bad publicity behind it In the...

Bay Area home sales jump.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... Bay Area home sales reached another record in October, according to DataQuick Information Systems. A total of 6,737 houses were sold in the nine-county Bay Area last month, virtually the same as September's 6,734, and up 0.2 percent from 6,725...

Crosspoint scraps $1B fund.(Crosspoint Venture Partners)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Crosspoint Venture Partners abandoned plans to close a $1 billion fund, citing current market conditions. Institutional investors had already committed money for the fund, which was expected to close Dec. 1. Woodside-based Crosspoint invests in...

Terminal finally takes off.(San Francisco International Airport)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... San Francisco International Airport officials announced the new international terminal will be fully operational by Dec. 10, following months of delays. The airport will gradually switch from the old terminal to the massive glass-and-steel...

Furniture site tabled.(UrbanDesign Online)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... UrbanDesign Online joined a growing number of cyber home-furnishings sites gone bad when it ceased operations Nov. 25. The San Francisco-based dot-com sold big-ticket furnishings to manufacturers, showrooms and designers. The firm cited an...

Judge rules against Raiders.(Oakland Raiders)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Ajudge ruled that the Oakland Raiders cannot continue to pursue fraud allegations against officials in Oakland and Alameda County over the team's move from Los Angeles. That ruling could keep the NFL team from seeking punitive damages against...

Local bank under investigation.(Citibank, Commercial Bank)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Congressional investigators said Commercial Bank of San Francisco and Citigroup Inc. violated control regulations and allowed nearly $1 billion in suspect Eastern European funds to move through their accounts, according to an Associated Press...

Weston Presidio closes $1.3B fund.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... San Francisco-based Weston Presidio Capital Management closed Weston Presidio Capital IV, a venture capital fund with commitments of $1.3 billion. This fund brings Weston Presidio's total capital under management to more than $2.2 billion. The...

Napster challenged again.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Matthew Katz, owner of local record label San Francisco Sound has filed suit against Bertelsmann BMG's e-commerce unit, alleging it is helping to finance Napster Inc.'s online music-sharing service, which he believes is threatening his...

Clay Timon.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Name: Clay Timon. Title: Chairman and CEO. Company: Landor Associates, the San Francisco-based corporate identity and design firm. Education: Bachelor of science degree in marketing from the University of Colorado. Residence:...

Dot-com plague could weaken S.F. office market.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Dot-com deaths and other technology demises have the potential to take a big bite out of the San Francisco real estate market, anew study from Ellis Partners LLC concludes. Using figures from urban planning group SPUR, the Association of...

Dresdner shells out big bucks for renewal.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Dresdner RCM Global Investors has paid top dollar for its renewal of five floors at Boston Properties' Embarcadero Four. The company shelled out $90 a square foot for the renewal of about 96,000 square feet, according to local brokers. The...

Cornish & Carey ponders S.F. market.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Brokerage firm Cornish & Carey is still interested in the San Francisco market, President Bill Walsh confirms, though it has made no concrete moves to set up an operation. "I don't think we would be adverse to opening up an office from...

Building prices just keep soaring.
December 1, 2000... Disproving those who thought the dot-com downturn would spook real estate buyers, San Francisco building prices continue their upward rise. After its original investors dropped out of a deal to buy 100 Pine, Unico Properties of Seattle came...

Broker: Interest high in 350 Rhode Island.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Some brokers are whispering about the uncertain fortunes of 350 Rhode Island, noting it is the only large building under construction that has yet to announce a tenant. Needless to say, Tom Poggi, the broker at The CAC Group who is leasing...

All I want for the real estate market.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... As the holiday season approaches, you probably have a few things on your wish list for the 2001 Bay Area real estate market. Please send an email with your letter to Santa Claus to abishop@bizjournals.com by Dec. 9. Please include your name,...

Real estate roundup.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... * The former Granny Goose facility on 98th Avenue in Oakland has sold for $6.5 million. Ted Anspracher and Richard Marshall of Cushman & Wakefield repped the seller. Jim Bohar of Colliers International repped the buyer, Sunrise Manufacturing....

No relief for web retailers from heavy eVisa fees.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Visa U.S.A.'s Internet unit is charging forward with new e-commerce products, but there's one item the credit card association is not about to change: the fee it charges retailers. Merchants get socked with an "interchange fee" of up to 5...

Bank of S.F. management fails in buyout attempt.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... First Banks America Inc. may have picked a plum with its upcoming acquisition of Bank of San Francisco, but it was far from the only interested buyer. As it turns out, bank management also took a shot at buying the $203 million-asset...

Valley veteran leads industry-specific division.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Rob McMillan, who's headed up Silicon Valley Bank's premium wineries division, has been promoted to division manager of the bank's industry-specific finance division. In addition to heading up the wineries division in St. Helena, he will...

Ailing dot-coms value advice over advertising.
December 1, 2000... After watching countless startups ride a marketing wave, only to drown just feet from the shore, a San Francisco ad shop has created a new branding division within its offices to offer nascent entrepreneurs timely advice on how to stay afloat....

Brand shop helps pigs fly.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Berkeley-based brand shop Addis Group has cast its design spell to give the well-known "For Dummies" Poindexter icon a corporate vehicle in the form of... a pig. IDG Books Worldwide, a Foster City-based publishing firm with more than 90...

Drug costs for younger crowd to soar 20 percent in 2001.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Health-care purchasers need to brace themselves for another big increase in drug costs in 2001, according to a new health-care study. Drug costs for everyone under 65 are expected to rise about 19.7 percent next year, according to the study...

Nothin' but Net.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Bay Area pro teams join Internet Age with interactive entertainment Missed a slam by the Golden State Warriors' Antawn Jamison? No problem -- an instant replay is only steps away at the team's in-arena Internet cafe. It's not only a...

Net business.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Future Insecure for Namesecure Concord domain name registration firm Namesecure.com, heralded as a rising star just a few months ago, now faces acquisition oblivion. "There is a real sense of urgency to this request," stated a recent...

PeoplePC broadens market in hunt for positive margins.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... PeoplePC, the San Francisco firm launched with the idea of putting PCs in the homes of everyday folks for a flat monthly fee, is making plans for new services in a push to boost its sagging bottom line. With its IPO last August, PeoplePC...

E-tailers fail 8-second rule.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... The surge in online traffic over the holiday weekend was a welcome sign for the much beleaguered B2C sector. But there was also a downside: The performance of many sites sagged under the weight of this traffic, according to online measurement...

Listen.com's Reid: Practice patience with web.(Rob Reid)(Brief Article)(Interview)
December 1, 2000... Rob Reid got his first real taste of the Internet in 1994 when he joined Silicon Graphics. He left two years later to write "Architects of the Web," a book chronicling the rise of the Internet. After a short stint as a principal at 21st Century...

Quintus in uphill battle to win back investor confidence.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Quintus Corp. executives say they will work hard to win back the confidence of the company's investors and customers, but some observers believe that effort may be too little too late. The troubled Fremont company slipped further into chaos...

Balancing act.(new consulting rules for accounting firms)
December 1, 2000... Big Five accounting firms find their footing in the wake of new SEC consulting rules Once upon a time, accountants just audited companies' books and did their taxes. Now big accounting firms' management consulting arms often dwarf their...

Some consultants bask in the dot-com bright side.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... Bay Area consulting firms are mining the silver lining in today's dark dot-com cloud as high-tech survivors graduate past the ABCs of starting a business and require more sophisticated services. For these dot-coms, the need for aid with...

Web riddled with legal traps.(unlicensed legal advice on the Internet)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... When seeking legal eagles on the Internet, the average user can run the risk of turning from hunter to prey. "There are a lot of people on the Net today giving legal advice who are not licensed," said Lynda Shely, director of lawyer ethics...

Accounting hits open road with new recruiting tactics.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... "To all employees of pure-play Internet consulting firms. If you are tired of watching the value of your stock options rise and fall like a roller coaster, then think about joining an innovative firm with a rock-solid foundation." So reads...

Accounting bloodhounds sniff out the money trail.(forensic accountants)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Testifying before Congress about the Teamsters union or aiding securities and fraud investigations may not sound like the typical duties of an accountant, but it's all in a day's work for Marvin Levy. Named one of the nation's leaders in...

Rising value of bundled contracts hurts small firms.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... A new study released by the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy found that federal agencies are bundling federal contracts into increasingly large packages, at the expense of small contractors. The average bundled contract...

Health appeals rule a step forward, but costly.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Business groups say the Clinton administration addressed some of their concerns in the final version of new regulations that require employer-based health plans to offer an internal appeals process for people who want to challenge coverage...

Synergy sparks growth.(Synergy Business Solutions)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... College friends connect in rapidly growing consulting business When Janet Petrik and Sophie O'Neal were college freshmen at the University of California at Berkeley, they never expected their friendship would develop into a successful...

SBA, South Korea ink deal.(Small Business Administration of the US)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... The Small Business Administration and its South Korean counterpart agreed to work together to encourage more American and Korean firms to do business with each other. Similar deals have been made with Mexico, Argentina, Canada, Egypt and...

Jeff Falcon.(Bay Home and Window)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Title: President and CEO. Company: Bay Home & Window. (The Home Source Co.), in Pleasanton. Focuses on custom interior plantation window shutters. 2000 revenue: $6.1 million. Founded: 1993. Number of employees: 23. Source...

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE.
December 1, 2000... ACCOUNTING/CONSULTING William Grayson and Soraya Betterton joined San Francisco-based Emerging Growth Management (EGM). Grayson, a vice president at J.P. Morgan in San Francisco, joined as managing director and chief operating officer. He...

Timid leadership makes housing crisis worse.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... The good news: Permits to build new housing are increasing faster in California than anywhere else. The bad news: Not here. Indeed, U.S. Census Bureau figures for the first 10 months of the year show that while housing permits raced...

Great teachers show faith in kids.(Roland McCandish)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... What makes a great teacher? If I taught school, the greatest honor I could have would be to show up on someone's list of their all-time favorites -- the ones who made a difference in their lives. So, my top five list: * l. Roland...

Jealousy fuels exaggerated dot-com hysteria.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... The current hysteria that surrounds local artists being run out by dot-commers is not only fallacious, but it is also biased and wrong-minded. For the last couple of years I have endured the exaggerated whines that the artists are all...

Enrollment spike threatens to overwhelm state colleges.(California)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... By approving Proposition 39 in November, Californians have taken a key step forward in helping to secure more funding for our public schools, while at the same lime implementing strict new guidelines on how school districts can spend local bond...

LETTERS.
December 1, 2000... City's housing exaction isn't 'loot' Economic good times have provided San Francisco with some $7.3 million in additional development fees for affordable housing, according to an article in the Oct. 13-20 issue of the Business Times. ...

Rise & Fall.(miscellaneous brief articles)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... A barometer of the region's movers, shakers and fakers David Norman Doing well, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, is the best revenge. One of the early victims of SBC's defenestration of Pacific Bell's management, Dorman now has the...

Inside Traders.
December 1, 2000... [TABLE HAS BEEN CLIPPED]

Largest Law Firms in the Bay Area.
December 1, 2000... [TABLE HAS BEEN CLIPPED]

BofA millions target Oakland.(Bank of America's Community Development Bank fund redevelopment and housing development)(Brief Article)
December 8, 2000... Community development bank's trio of projects to top $300M Bank of America's Community Development Bank has targeted Oakland for 2 million square feet of new residential and commercial buildings, spanning three separate projects that could...

Bay Area goes for Olympic gold.(Northern California's bid for the 2012 Olympics)
December 8, 2000... Marathon bid requires backers with stamina When organizers of Northern California's bid for the 2012 Olympics pitched sponsorship possibilities to Providian Financial Corp., the company essentially replied: Twelve years is a long time. ...

Ex-Shorenstein duo clicks with bricks.(Webbrix hopes to combine retail shopping with online experience)(Brief Article)
December 8, 2000... Former Shorenstein Co. president Mike LaHorgue has emerged as a key backer of Webbrix, a San Francisco startup that aspires to be the "corner store" for Internet consumers. As the name suggests, Webbrix plans to combine the web's wide...

Retail empire builder has Prada in the bag.(Trinity Properties signs contract with Prada for San Francisco stores)(Brief Article)
December 8, 2000... Angelo Sangiacomo has struck again. The wily patriarch of Trinity Properties, who has rapidly emerged as one of San Francisco's biggest retail landlords, has scored his biggest deal yet: an agreement by Italy's Prada fashion empire to put...

Gap store could spur Oakland retail revival.(store planned at 1333 Broadway)(Brief Article)
December 8, 2000... The Gap Inc. has finally signed a lease at 1333 Broadway for 10,000 square feet that will house its Gap, BabyGap and GapKids collections. The lease could be the long-awaited catalyst for Oakland's retail renaissance. Construction will...

Games people play.(Electronic Arts EA.com Majestic online game plans)(Brief Article)
December 8, 2000... EA.com betting on 'Majestic' to boost sluggish earnings The game will tell you when it's time to play. It will contact you unprompted at home or at work -- through your email address, instant messenger account or even your phone number --...

M&A activity sees uptick with downturn.(San Francisco investment banks are expecting an increase in merger and acquisitions possibilities)(Brief Article)
December 8, 2000... San Francisco investment banks are beefing up staff and burning the midnight oil as venture capitalists and their portfolio companies look to mergers and acquisitions in the wake of plunging share prices and a virtually dead IPO market. ...

Stock Answers.(Campbell Chaney, director of research for Sutro & Co., views on banking stocks)(Brief Article)
December 8, 2000... Loss of appetite for stocks gives investors the hunger pains For thousands of years, one of the most passionate and continuous debates in all of Judaism has been over hard or soft. There are those who believe matzo balls should float in...

Web satire causes Bigtime headaches for Andersen.(Andersen Consulting satirized by BigtimeConsulting.com)(Brief Article)
December 8, 2000... BigtimeConsulting.com, a satiric web site launched by a former foot soldier in Andersen Consulting's San Francisco office, continues to be required reading for many of the firm's 50,000 workers around the world. It has also been the target...

ZapMe drops out of school.(changes focus from educational market to the business market)(Brief Article)
December 8, 2000... ZapMe is zapping the 2,300 schools who signed up for its "free" computers and high-speed Internet services, informing them that they will need to start paying for them -- or send the equipment back. In a letter obtained this week by the...

Rise & Fall.
December 8, 2000... A barometer of the region's movers, shakers and fakers Julie Wainwright Every dog (food) has its day. Wainwright's Pets.com may be on its way to the dot-com pet cemetery, but it still musters 21 tons of dog food to save starving sled...

E-tailers wobble atop flimsy Internet infrastructure.(electronic commerce management)(Brief Article)
December 8, 2000... At around 5 p.m. the day after Thanksgiving, holiday shoppers -- apparently fed up with long lines at the real-world mall -- clicked their way to e-tailers in droves. Those logging on to BlueLight.com found their patience tested there as...

Advocacy groups target WorldCom's merger limbo.(Brief Article)
December 8, 2000... Nearly five months after WoridGom Inc. and Sprint terminated their planned marriage, they are still waiting for a California Public Utilities judge to allow them to withdraw their application for merger approval. The two telecommunications...