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COMMERCE
IN BRIEF
Greater
Missouri Builders Looking For Restaurant To Bite Into Washington
Avenue
When Greater Missouri Builders, a real estate company in St.
Charles, acquired the 555 Washington Avenue building downtown
from the U.S. Postal Service for about $4.2 million, the plan
was to “do a mix of the old and the new.”
The old is
the historic ambiance of a 100-plus-year-old building that was
extensively renovated in the mid 1980s, and the new is the creative,
high-tech tenants who are filling up the place. Approximately
50,000 square feet of space is still available for lease.
Tenants include the Zipatoni Co., a growing firm that specializes
in creative advertising, which occupies 62,000 square feet with
about 220 employees working on floors two and three. Digital Dimensions,
which provide data warehousing for print and on-line catalogs,
have 12,000 square feet on the fourth floor. PeopleSupport.com,
an e-commerce support firm open 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
has 500 employees and leases 30,000 square feet on the fifth floor.
Software developer/programmer Heuris, occupies 5,700 square feet
of the Forum gallery’s old space on the first floor.
“With 1,200 people who work in the building, there is a good captive
audience to do lunches and get a drink after work,” says Kent
Evans of Greater Missouri Builders. “Some type of retail, coffee
shop or restaurant where people can congregate would get some
street circulation and tie the building into the energy of downtown.”
The empty space at street level includes three separate areas,
about 3,000 square feet, facing Washington Avenue. Another 9,000
square feet is available on the southwest corner that suits a
full-scale, sit-down restaurant and jazz bar, Evans says.
Duckett Creek Honored for Accounting Practices and Wastewater
Excellence
Above
Picture:
Duckett
Creek earns EPA Region 7 Wastewater
Excellence Award. From left, Robert Eck, department
of natural resources, regional administrator;
Mary Mindrup, program manager of EPA Region
7 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System;
Harold W. Burkemper, Duckett Creek, Sanitary District
board member; Tom Szilasi, executive director of Duckett
Creek. |
The Duckett Creek Sanitary District is one of just three wastewater
districts in the state and the only wastewater treatment district
in St. Charles County to receive the highest form of recognition
in the area of government accounting and financial reporting.
The Government
Finance Officers Association (GFOA) awarded Duckett Creek a Certificate
of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting for the District’s
Comprehensive 1998 Annual Report.
“This award represents a significant accomplishment by our financial
management team and demonstrates our commitment to provide east-to-read
financial information to the community,” says Tom Szilasi, executive
director of Duckett Creek Sanitary District, which serves 26,000
customers in St. Charles County. “The annual report also provides
a reliable vehicle for potential investors to assess the District’s
financial health when considering a bond issue to finance expansion
or improvement projects.”
In other news, Duckett Creek earned the U.S. Environmental Projection
Agency (EPA) Region 7 Wastewater Excellence Award for its Treament
Plant #2 located in the Missouri Research Park.
The high-tech treatment plant was chosen for ease of maintenance,
odor control, biosolids recycling, long-term reliability and cost
savings through reduced energy use.
Symphony and Opera To Benefit from Ford Foundation’s $42 Million
Challenge Grant
The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) and Opera Theatre
of Saint Louis (OTSL) are two of 28 non-profit arts organizations
across the country to benefit from the Ford Foundation’s $42.5
million New Directions/New Donors for the Arts initiative.
SLSO will receive a challenge grant of $2.5 million from the
Ford Foundation in order to stimulate increased support from individual
donors. The SLSO will use its $2.5 million challenge grant to
establish a $9.5 million endowed fund for its Community Partnership
Program (CPP). Garnering national attention, these partnerships
include a collaboration with African-American churches throughout
the region, and the St. Louis Symphony Community Music School,
which offers sequential music education classes, performance opportunities
and community concerts to people of all ages and abilities.
As one of only two opera companies in the country to benefit from
the Foundation, OTSL will match its $1.5 million challenge grant
by raising $6 million in new or increased gifts over five years.
The goal is to enhance programs for young artists, establish a
permanent endowment for its acclaimed high school Artists-in-Training
program and underwrite facility improvements and planning.
“New Directions/New Donors for the Arts responds to the current
explosion of cultural activity and rapid growth of wealth in the
United States,” says Susan V. Beresford, president of the Ford
Foundation. “It grows out of our desire to see if we can jumpstart
a process that gives greater permanency and financial stability
to cultural organizations.”
Quest Software
Acquires Client/Server Solutions
Quest Software, Inc., (Nasdaq: QSFT) has acquired St.Louis-based
Client/Server Solutions, Inc., the creator of Benchmark Factory®,
a highly scalable software solution for creating and measuring
realistic and repeatable large-scale user loads for Web, database,
and e-mail applications. Quest will continue the development of
Benchmark Factory in St. Louis.
Benchmark Factory will be integrated with Quest’s Foglight™ enterprise
monitoring product, offering one of the only solutions that can
combine the measurement of user experience with infrastructure
monitoring to locate and correct performance problems for critical
e-Business and Web-based applications.
“Client/Server Solutions has clearly demonstrated its expertise
in the testing and capacity planning marketplace with the success
of Benchmark Factory,” says Vincent C. Smith, Quest chairman and
chief executive officer. “When combined with our existing production
support and development offerings, organizations will be able
to detect and correct performance issues well before end users
are affected. Benchmark Factory complements Quest’s existing products
not only in terms of its functionality, but also because of its
best-of-breed technology and ease of use for rapid customer return
on investment.”
The wide range of industries using the product includes Advance
Micro Devices, Compaq Computer Corporation, Dell Computers, Ford
Motor Company, MCI Worldcom, Microsoft, Oracle Corporation, Shell
Oil and Southwestern Bell.
“We are very excited about joining forces with Quest because the
combination of Benchmark Factory and Quest’s products will provide
one of the most complete solutions available for determining where
and why modern application systems will experience problems,”
adds Brian Butler, Client/Server Solutions president. “Their growth
and leadership in the marketplace will help leverage the future
success of Benchmark Factory.”
Sheet Metal Workers Open Expanded, Computer-Enhanced Training
Facility
Above
Picture:
Representing the jointly supported South St. Louis
apprenticeship training facility are David C.
Zimmermann (left-center), president of Sheet
Metal Workers Local 36 and Dan Durphy (right-center),
owner of Peters-Eichler, with the Sheet Metal
& Air Conditioning Contractors Association.
Apprentices Adam Andrews (outside left) and
Dale Luttrell (outside right) flank them in tin suits. |
The expanded Sheet Metal Works Training Center in midtown St.
Louis has demonstrated that the craft of metalworking has come
a long way since the days of the village black smith. For example,
computer keypads replace tools such as hammers, tongs and anvils
to create exciting new career options in the building trades.
The $270,000 facility doubles classroom and workshop space to
more than 18,000 square feet and adds sophisticated interactive
computer training capability. A labor-management coalition underwrites
and operates the five-year program, which serves 200 sheet metal
apprentices and 25 heating, ventilation/air conditioning (hvac)
service technicians.
The expansion includes a new and larger sheet metal shop, added
space for hvac training and equipment, two new classrooms, a break
room and more storage. The upgrade also includes two interactive
computer interfaced presentation boards, software for teaching
operation of computerized plasma cutting machines, four new desktop
computers and two new welding stations.
AIS Earns Prestigious Award from Networking Giant Cisco Systems
Applied
Information Systems (AIS), a division of St. Louis-based French
Gerleman, received a prestigious award from Cisco Systems, the
worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. AIS was selected
from hundreds of value-added resellers in the northwest region
of the United States to receive the Most Improved Year-Over-Year
Performance award.
As a Premier Certified Partner for Cisco Systems, AIS increased
its sales of Cisco Systems products by more than eight-fold in
one year, growth greater than any other reseller in a 13-state
region. “The AIS team and its focus on Cisco led the company to
the highest year-over-year growth in a territory that encompasses
13 states and hundreds of resellers,” says Kerry McDonough, Cisco
regional channel manager.
French Gerleman is a St. Louis-based technology solution provider,
supplying profit-boosting electrical and automation products and
services to industrial, commercial and construction markets since
1923. The AIS division, established in 1998, focuses on network
infrastructure development and provides any level of service needed,
from materials only to total turnkey solutions.
NewsChannel 5 Awarded for Volunteerism and AIDS Awareness
NewsChannel
5 (KSDK TV) received the “High 5 Award” in recognition of raising
volunteer awareness in the community. Through the seventh anniversary
of the Volunteer 5 program, the station raised nearly $24 million
in community services and promoted AIDS awareness and prevention.
With recommendation from the St. Louis Regional Psychiatric Rehabilitation
Center and St. Louis Effort for AIDS, the Missouri Community Service
Commission also awarded NewsChannel 5 for its regional promotion
of AIDS awareness and prevention.
“We’re very proud of our long-term commitment to volunteerism
and the way that Volunteer 5 has encouraged St. Louisans to get
involved in helping the community,” says Lynn Beall, KSDK president
and general manager. “Our support of AIDS awareness and prevention
programs are an important part of KSDK’s responsibility to serve
this wonderful community.”
Insituform
Dedicates Research Center
Above
Picture:
Attending the dedication ceremony, were from left,
Mike Williams, a trustee of the St. Louis Metropolitan
Sewer District; Missouri Senator Christopher “Kit” Bond;
Tony Hooper, chairman and chief executive officer of Insituform
Technologies, Inc.; and Patricia York, mayor of St. Charles.
|
Insituform Technologies, Inc. has dedicated its 64,000-square-foot
research and development center in Chesterfield to the memory
of the man who invented the pipe rehabilitation process from which
the company derives its name. Eric Wood is the British inventor
of the Insituform process, a method of restoring structural integrity
to deteriorated sewers without digging up the existing pipes.
“Eric Wood
did not just build a company, he started an entire industry,”
says Tony Hooper, Insituform chairman and chief executive officer.
“With the process he founded, thousands of miles of pipe are fixed
every year, saving millions of dollars and untold destruction
to homes and businesses.”
With U.S. operations from coast to coast, and in every major country
in Europe, Insituform is one of the only companies in the world
to specialize in nondisruptive approaches to sewer repair.
Central Institute for the Deaf Awarded Grant for New Museum
Central
Institute for the Deaf (CID) has been awarded a $3,480 grant from
the Conservation Assessment Program (CAP) for a hearing device
collection exhibit to be displayed at the institute’s new campus.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in Washington
D.C. funds the grant, which is designed for small museums to conduct
a general conservation survey of their collections. CID will use
the grant to hire an experienced curator to assess the CID-Max
A. Goldstein Collection of hearing devices dating from 1796. The
new exhibit will showcase hearing devices representing numerous
decades of innovations, plus photographs, diagrams and illustrations
of historical significance.
“One of my favorite parts of the fascinating and unique items
in the collection is an ear trumpet disguised as a water canteen,
which was designed for a plantation owner in the 1800s,” says
Cathy Sarli, CID’s librarian and chair of the museum committee.
“The grant is an initial step in our extensive plan to present
a history of deafness, hearing and communications to the general
public.”
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