Archive for August 21st, 2007
A building that 100 years ago housed a furniture store on Monmouth Street in Newport got new life this weekend as eight apartments.
Brothers Bill and Tony Kreutzjans spent the past year rehabbing the building and joined several other developers converting some of the old buildings along Newport’s main corridor into housing.
Tenants began moving in this weekend, with five of the apartments already leased. The retail space is still on the market. Rents range from $675 to $1,100.
The Kreutzjanses invested $700,000 into the Dine-Schabell building to create the apartments and bottom-floor retail space.
State and federal historic tax credits totaling $130,000 helped in the building’s restoration.
The building had enticed Bill Kreutzjans Jr. for years.
“It is difficult to find anything like this,” Bill Kreutzjans Jr. said. “We have parking. The high ceilings are historic. Monmouth Street in general, with the new businesses coming in, it is a lot of fun and excitement.”
Nearby on Monmouth, work continues on 41 apartments being developed in the 120-year-old Marx Cromer building by Cincinnati developer Middle Earth. The construction fell behind schedule as crews worked to make the buildings conform to historical standards, said Glenn Kukla, a partner in Middle Earth Properties.
Kukla hopes to have the building completed in six to eight weeks. It will also feature 14,000 square feet of first-floor retail space.
August 21st, 2007
By Kristine Ellis — Casual Living,
When Kathy Haney took a temp job back in the late 1980s at the Rubbermaid/Allibert manufacturing facility in Stanley, N.C., little did she know it would change her life. She had already worked in several industries, never staying long in any one place. But all of that experience was preparing her for what was to come.
“I started in the casual industry when Rubbermaid and Allibert were in their heyday,” Haney said. “I went in as a temp in customer service and never left.”
When the Rubbermaid/Allibert joint venture split in the early 1990s, Haney stayed with Rubbermaid. But it wasn’t long before she made another change. In 1992, Doug Austin, then owner of Outdoor Lifestyle in South Africa, approached her to run his company’s new U.S. operations.
Haney became the first, and for more than a year the only, Outdoor Lifestyle employee in the United States. She did everything from cold-calling her old Rubbermaid/Allibert customers to answering phones and loading and unloading trucks. Then everything changed again when the Ilse family bought the company
“They walked in one day and said, ‘You report to us now and we’re giving you a title, a large raise and some help,’” she said. “That was 15 years ago.”
Since then change has continued to be a constant, paralleling the growth of the company. Outdoor LifeStyle now has full representation in both the specialty and contract markets, and a staff of about 30 people. What hasn’t changed is Haney’s ability to be a jack of all trades, taking on whatever needs to be done and doing it well. While her title may be vice president of operations and sales, she also manages marketing, human resources and customer service.
Haney describes her leadership style as all about respect.
“I try to treat people the way I want to be treated,” she said. “If there is a rush or large order, for instance, I don’t just say, get this out. I explain what’s going on. We really operate as a team here, and I make sure that everyone understands that they are important to the big picture.”
Having gained her leadership skills in the trenches, she views everything as a learning experience.
“My varied background provided the tools that I still fall back on,” she said. “A lot of it is common sense, but it all goes back to respect.”
In some ways, Haney is the quintessential face of the casual industry — high energy, passionate and always ready to have fun. She loves what she does in part because of the close friendships she’s developed over the years.
“The beauty of it is that you get to do business with friends, and that’s a wonderful thing,” she said.
Looking back, she is most proud of her contributions to helping the company grow and in building its future potential.
“We aren’t a big manufacturer but we are now part of the picture,” Haney said. “We are producing quality products, getting specified on the contract side and bringing out new products that are very exciting, very innovative. The direction the company is going is very positive and there are many good changes ahead.”
Haney plans to be there for all of them.
August 21st, 2007
RESTON, Va., /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — XO Communications, (Nachrichten) a leading provider of 21st century communications for businesses and communications carriers, today announced the completion of a 13-site MPLS- based IP-VPN solution for J.D. Garber Furniture. J.D. Garber Furniture operates 13 home furnishings stores under the Lane Home Furnishings and D&D Home Furnishings brands across the greater Philadelphia, southern New Jersey and Wilmington, Delaware metro area.
J.D. Garber Furniture has converged separate voice and data networks into a single converged IP infrastructure using XO MPLS IP-VPN. The private wide area network designed by XO supports both IP voice traffic and data traffic including point-of-sale transactions that are captured at retail stores and are carried over the network to the company’s headquarters. The solution enables J.D. Garber Furniture to streamline management of its network to a single provider and establish a class of service-aware IP network to support business transactions and the company’s migration to voice over IP. In addition, XO MPLS IP-VPN allows J.D. Garber Furniture to cost-effectively manage the priority of distinct data and VoIP traffic across its network without extra charges for traffic assigned to each class of service.
“We needed a converged voice and data network that can quickly and securely support our migration to voice over IP and the transmission of essential customer point of sale information,” said Micah Bosico, Director of Technology and Business Development for J.D. Garber/D&D Home Furnishings. “We’re confident that the solution provided by XO will provide us with a flexible and reliable network to help us operate more efficiently and improve service to our customers.”
XO MPLS IP-VPN offers businesses and large enterprises a secure, intelligent and managed network to connect offices, customers and partners and converge a wide range of voice, video and data applications over a single IP network infrastructure. XO MPLS IP-VPN provides a wide range of access options to connect locations and flexible classes of services to prioritize Internet, intranet, extranet, voice, video and mission-critical business applications — all over a single, high performance application-aware IP network.
Key benefits of XO MPLS IP-VPN include: — Nationwide Coverage — Broad coverage with service availability in 75 metropolitan markets across the United States — Flexible and Scalable Network Architecture — MPLS-based network architecture provides any-to-any connectivity among all sites and automatically sets up pathways to new sites. — Broad Range of Access Options — Customers can utilize the service with Dedicated Internet Access at speeds from T-1 through OC-X and Ethernet services. — Robust Classes of Service — Optimize data traffic flows to support any type of application with one flat rate for access to all four classes of service. — Fully Managed — Reduces total cost of ownership and provides 24×7 monitoring of network facilities and equipment.
For more information about XO MPLS IP-VPN or other XO services go to http://www.xo.com/, or contact an XO sales representative by calling (866) 963- 9696.
About XO Communications
XO Communications, a subsidiary of XO Holdings, Inc. (BULLETIN BOARD: XOHO), is a leading provider of 21st century communications services for businesses and communications services providers, including 40 percent of the Fortune 1000 and leading cable companies, carriers, content providers, and mobile operators. Utilizing its unique and powerful nationwide IP network and extensive local metro networks and broadband wireless facilities, XO offers customers a broad range of managed voice, data and IP services in 75 metropolitan markets across the United States. For more information, visit http://www.xo.com/.
Klicken Sie hier, um weitere aktuelle Nachrichten zum Unternehmen zu finden:
XO HOLDINGS
August 21st, 2007
Deal includes Calif. manufacturing facility
Cinde W. Ingram — Casual Living,
Hanamint Corp. and Alu-Mont Furniture Manufacturing Corp. today jointly announced that they have reached a tentative agreement in which Hanamint will acquire the assets of Alu-Mont, including its 110,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing facility in Irwindale, Calif.
Under this agreement, Hanamint will continue to produce and sell the Alu-Mont product line and also use the Irwindale facility to support Hanamint operations.
“As the two companies work towards finalizing this transaction, we want Alu-Mont’s customers to know that Hanamint is committed to supporting them and, over time, expanding the Alu-Mont product line,” said Russ Sorenson, president of Hanamint. “We also believe the Irwindale facility provides a unique opportunity for Hanamint to expand its already significant presence in the Western U.S.”
Kent Higashi, Present of Alu-Mont, said “Alu-Mont has been a respected name in the casual outdoor furniture industry for over 40 years, and we are pleased that Hanamint is dedicated to continuing our tradition of product excellence and dedicated customer service.”
August 21st, 2007
Paco Underhill, an internationally recognized expert on consumer shopping behavior, will be the keynote speaker at a public forum entitled “The Future of Furniture: High Definition Retailing.”
The one-day forum will be held Aug. 28 on the campus of Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory, N.C. It is presented by The Furniture Foundation, Home Furnishings Business magazine and the Lenoir-Rhyne College Charles M. Snipes School of Business.
This forum is part of the Lenoir-Rhyne Leading Edge Series, an ongoing program designed to provide the audience with a comprehensive look at issues that have had a major impact on the extended community.
Underhill has spent more than 25 years conducting research on different aspects of shopping behavior. He is founder, CEO and president of Envirosell, a consulting company. Underhill is the author of two books: “Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping” and “Call of the Mall: The Geography of Shopping.” Underhill’s research helps companies understand what motivates the behaviors of today’s consumer. It shows how today’s retail world is ruled by factors such as gender, “trial and touch” and human anatomy.
Underhill and Envirosell have been profiled by major publications, such as The New Yorker, Fortune, Fast Company, Business Week and Smithsonian Magazine, and have been featured on ABC’s “20/20,” and CBS’s “48 Hours.” Underhill is a regular contributor to NPR and BBC Radio. His columns and editorials have appeared in the New York Times, London Times, Wall Street Journal and the Christian Science Monitor.
The Future of Furniture Retailing will begin with several morning workshops in the Belk Centrum on campus. “Supply Chain Management” will be presented at 9 a.m. by Dr. Bjarne Berg, an L-R professor who formerly was senior manager at Price WaterhouseCooper’s global data warehouse group and former director of business intelligence at MyITGroup Ltd. In these positions, he managed multi-year projects for major national and international companies. He is an international speaker on the subject of using computer databases to enhance business.
At 10 a.m., “Activity Based Costing” will be presented by Dr. Charles Brandon, a CPA and college professor whose specialty is managerial and cost accounting. He is currently working in the area of cost management. He will discuss how hidden overhead costs can cause manufacturers to under-price their products and lose money, or over-price and lose sales.
At 11 a.m., “Marketing to Today’s Consumer” will be presented by Visiting Professor Kevin Kelley. He is the principal and co-founder of Shook Kelley, an atypical architecture and design firm that specializes in consumer behavior for retail and consumer-based companies. His client list has included Whole Foods, Harley-Davidson and The Coca-Cola Company, among others.
Underhill’s presentation, titled “The Furniture Shopping Experience,” will begin at 2:30 p.m. in the P.E. Monroe Auditorium. His remarks will be followed by a Blue Ribbon Panel discussion on “The Future of Furniture Retailing.”
The Blue Ribbon Panel will be moderated by Kevin Kelley of Shook Kelley. Other panelists include Clive Lubner of Robb & Stucky Interiors, Nancy Webster of Thomasville Furniture Industries, Barclay Butera of Barclay Butera Inc., Sheila Long O’Mara of Home Furnishings Business, and Rob Casey of The Good Bed.
The cost for the morning workshops is $25 per workshop for members of the Lenoir-Rhyne Business Council or $35 per workshop for non-members. Underhill’s presentation and the Blue Ribbon Panel discussion are free to the public, although advance registration is required.
This forum should be of interest to key executives within the furniture industry, including those involved in manufacturing, importing and retailing. For additional information, contact Neal Orgain at 828-328-7314 - LRC News
August 21st, 2007
Next Posts