2 Top Corporations Move Headquarters To Pittsburgh’s ‘Dynamic Marketplace’

Duquesne University’s view of the Pittsburgh skyline. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Two regional companies announced Wednesday that they will make Pittsburgh their headquarters — beckoned from their suburban bases by a desire to be in a thriving big city that could help increase their profiles.

Michael Baker International and the parent company of First National Bank of Pennsylvania aren’t pulling up the stakes and relocating all their employees to Pittsburgh from their old headquarters. They have simply identified Pittsburgh as the place they will call home.

Michael Baker International LLC, a $1.2 billion construction-engineering company, will move its headquarters and 65 workers from Moon to the two top floors of Bank of New York Mellon Center, Downtown, in December. It will still retain a significant presence in Moon.

F.N.B. Corp. said it will ditch Hermitage, Mercer County, as the headquarters city for the region’s third-largest bank. It said the decision to make the Pittsburgh North Shore its home base will not impact employees.

Read more: http://triblive.com/business/headlines/6418044-74/pittsburgh-delie-national#ixzz375QXA4JW

Follow us: @triblive on Twitter | triblive on Facebook

Cincinnati Streetcar Plan Pits Desire For Growth Against Fiscal Restraint

Downtown Cincinnati (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CINCINNATI, OH — It has been a long time since a streetcar was just a streetcar here.

Instead, a $133 million project to build a 3.6-mile streetcar line through downtown has come to represent, depending on whom you talk to, a debt trap that will sink the city or an ambitious development effort that is central to Cincinnati’s revival.

And when the debate ended last week in an unexpected last-minute victory for the streetcar proponents, it was seen as both a vote of confidence in the city’s future and a reminder of how tenuous support for the project had become.

On the brink of being shut down, the project was saved by a successful petition drive and a written commitment, provided by the Haile U.S. Bank Foundation, from about 15 private backers to pay up to $9 million in operating costs, if needed, over the line’s first decade.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/23/us/cincinnati-streetcar-plan-pits-desire-for-growth-against-fiscal-restraint.html?_r=0

Outside Investors Purchasing More Downtown Pittsburgh Sites

English: The U.S. Steel Tower, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, with the new corporate logo of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In one sense, Pittsburgh’s resurgence can be measured by its Downtown skyline — not so much by the names atop its skyscrapers but by those on the property deeds to them.

More and more, out-of-town investors are gobbling up prominent real estate Downtown, drawn by a host of factors, from high occupancy rates to the diversity of the local economy.

In fact, a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette review of high-profile building sales Downtown and on the North Shore since 2011 found that 10 of 13 have gone to out-of-town buyers, including such landmarks as the U.S. Steel Tower and the PPG Place complex.

Another three properties currently under agreement to be sold, including Liberty Center and the accompanying Westin Convention Center Hotel, also are being purchased by outside investors.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/news/outside-investors-purchasing-more-downtown-pittsburgh-sites-692796/#ixzz2X4r4GKrA

Mayer Tells Yahoo Staffers They Can’t Work From Home

Deutsch: Logo von Yahoo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

SAN FRANCISCO — Corporate America’s most famous working mother has banned her employees from working at home.  Now the backlash is threatening to overshadow the progress she has made turning around Yahoo Inc.

Marissa Mayer, one of only a handful of women leading Fortune 500 companies, has become the talk of Twitter and Silicon Valley for her controversial move to end telecommuting at the struggling Internet pioneer.

From the start, Mayer, who at 37 is one of Silicon Valley’s most notorious workaholics, was not the role model that some working moms were hoping for.  The former Google Inc. executive stirred up controversy by taking the demanding top job at Yahoo when she was five months pregnant and then taking only two weeks of maternity leave.  Mayer built a nursery next to her office at her own expense to be closer to her infant son and work even longer hours.

Now working moms are in an uproar because they believe that Mayer is setting them back by taking away their flexible working arrangements.  Many view telecommuting as the only way time-crunched women can care for young children and advance their careers without the pay, privilege or perks that come with being the chief executive of a Fortune 500 company.

Read more:  http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/chi-mayers-tells-yahoo-staffers-they-cant-work-from-home-20130225,0,2512436.story