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CNA Insurance said Thursday that the company plans to move its operations from its building at 401 Penn St. to another location in Berks County.
Mayor Tom McMahon confirmed that the insurance company officials told him they want to move to smaller quarters because only 25 percent of the building is in use, so it has become difficult for the company to support it financially…
Read the rest of the article here: http://readingeagle.com/Article.aspx?id=339019
Wyomissing native and music superstar Taylor Swift has not forgotten where she came from. The singer donated 6,000 new books to the Reading Public Library that will hopefully inspire children to read. The books will be equally divided between the library’s branches. Two Roy’s Rants thumbs up for giving back to your community!
To read the entire article, click here: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=339089
Hopefully this is an isolated incident.
http://www.pottsmerc.com/articles/2011/10/14/news/doc4e9874474871e880474455.txt
There is a school of thought that says the restaurant business is always a good business because people need to eat. A glance at the sales of many of America’s largest restaurant chains over the past decade quickly dispels that myth.
Using data provided by food industry research firm Technomic, 24/7 Wall St. has looked at the 10 restaurant chains with the greatest decline is sales from 2001 to 2010. In every case, sales have fallen 60% or more…
To find out who the 10 chains are, click here: http://money.msn.com/business-news/latest.aspx?post=3b851ddb-d3b2-4867-92a3-07abc068523b
D&B (formerly Dun & Bradstreet) is looking at options when their lease expires in Short Hills, NJ. D&B has their corporate headquarters in Short Hills and employs about 600 people there. Having this company move their headquarters to Allentown would mean bringing $76 million a year in salaries to the Lehigh Valley. There is some speculation on exactly where they might move, however, one possible site would be the new $60 million office/retail/residential complex planned for downtown Allentown.
Currently D&B has 650 workers in Upper Saucon Township at the Stabler Center. The move would double the number of D&B employees in the Lehigh Valley.
The City of Bethlehem has figured out that the arts can bring economic development. Many projects have already sprung up in Bethlehem that are having a major impact on the city. This project is another example of adaptive re-use and the benefits of involving the arts.
The former St. Stanislaus Church in south Bethlehem could provide a little divine inspiration for artists attracted to the growing SteelStacks campus.
The rectory would be razed to make room for 36 affordable apartments targeting artists as tenants under a proposal by Housing Development Corp. MidAtlantic of Lancaster. The church, founded in 1906 to mainly serve Polish Catholics in the neighborhood, would be reused as a gallery and space for performances or other events…
There is a LOT of talk coming from the Philadelphia Eagles organization as of late. Last week’s loss to Buffalo put the Eagles at 1-4. The inability of the Eagles to hold it together for four quarters is alarming, to say the least. We can’t catch the ball, hold on to the ball, score or keep the other team from scoring. Sounds like a serious problem. So far we are hearing talk, talk and more talk. Things are progressively going downhill as the season unfolds.
Obviously something has drastically changed from last season. It appears we have yet to identify the root problem and make a correction. This week we are being told the Eagles “plan to stay aggressive while working on the turnover problem.”
I think if things don’t turn around this week we may see some major leadership changes. I say let the chips fall where they may.
Some good news from Central Pennsylvania regarding homes sales for the third quarter of 2011. The Greater Harrisburg area (Dauphin, Cumberland and Perry Counties) saw a 17.1 percent increase in the number of homes sold during the third quarter. The increase is measured against home sales for the third quarter of 2010.
The median sale price was 4.1 percent lower than the same period last year. It also took an average of 5 days longer for those homes to sell over last year.
Nationally home sales rose 18.6 percent when compared to August of 2010. The median sale price was down 5.1 percent nationally.
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