FINANCIAL PLANNING EXECUTIVE JOINS HOOVER FINANCIAL ADVISORS

Joseph W. Dowling

Malvern, PA – Joseph W. Dowling recently joined Hoover Financial Advisors (HFA) as a financial advisor. His appointment was announced by Pete Hoover, CFP®, CEO and founder of the firm.

Prior to becoming a member of the HFA staff, Dowling operated his own business, Epiphany Wealth Partners. Before that, he was a wealth management advisor with United Capital Financial Advisors. He held similar positions with several prestigious firms, including Penn Liberty Bank Wealth Advisors and First Financial Group/Mass Mutual. He began his career as an institutional broker with Tullett Prebon in New York.

In his role as a financial advisor, he develops, manages and supports HFA client relationships. He is diligent in the research of the latest techniques, financial industry regulations as well as federal and state requirements. Dowling’s personal involvement as a business owner broadens his perception and understanding of HFA client experiences and requirements.

Dowling is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. His BA is in Regional Science. He holds Pennsylvania Property & Casualty Producer, Pennsylvania Life, Health & Annuity Producer and FINRA Series 65 licenses. The Northeast Philadelphia native currently resides in Erdenheim with his wife and five daughters.

HFA, which is headquartered on Moores Road in Malvern, was launched in 2005 by Pete Hoover, who has been an independent financial advisor for more than 30 years.  Since its inception, HFA has quadrupled in size. Staff members include certified financial planners, financial advisors, investment analysts, insurance and tax specialists, attorneys, a certified portfolio manager, and an information services manager. In 2012, HFA was selected as Small Business of the Year by Chester County Chamber of Business & Industry. For more information, visit its website at petehoover.com or call 610.651.2777.

Phila. Roofs Are Sprouting Greenery

When Esta Schwartz moved into her sixth-floor condominium at the Philadelphian, the view was not its best selling point.

The condos in the front of the building look out onto the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the Art Museum, but her balcony, at the back, offered views of a black roof studded with large air-conditioning units.

Not anymore. Last week, workers began spreading dirt atop the roof, then planting it with sedum and other greenery that will be pink in June, ocher come November. Tall grasses will hide the air handlers.

“In some ways, it’s like a view out of a suburban window,” she said. Perhaps a third of the building’s condos now overlook, in effect, a huge lawn.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/science/20150422_Phila__roofs_are_sprouting_greenery.html#HmDdVpIU2KkOq5jx.99

John Legend Coming To County For Lancaster Chamber’s Annual Dinner

International singing and songwriting star John Legend will be the keynote speaker at The Lancaster Chamber of Commerce & Industry’s 143rd annual dinner, the chamber said Friday.

The event will be held Wednesday, May 27 at the Lancaster County Convention Center from 5 to 9 p.m.

Legend will talk about the importance of giving back to the community, including his own effort to support quality education, the Show Me Campaign, which focuses on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Read more:

http://lancasteronline.com/news/local/john-legend-coming-to-county-for-lancaster-chamber-s-annual/article_597dd510-c970-11e4-b34f-bf4cb1108a76.html

Art Commission Gives Conceptual OK To Glass Tower At 5th And Walnut

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Philadelphia County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Architect Cecil Baker and developer Tom Scannapieco went before the Philadelphia Art Commission Wednesday with their concepts for creating a 26-story residential tower at 5th and Walnut streets. They were granted conceptual approval with a few caveats, including asking the applicants to bring corrected project renderings, more detailed streetscape plans, and examples of exterior construction materials when they return to the Art Commission for final approval later this year.

The “ultra-high-end” glass tower will include 40 residential units, with two units each of about 4,000 square feet on floors five through 13, and one 8,000- to 9,000-square-foot unit on floors 14 through 26. The developers are “going after a very small, very rich segment of the population,” said Cecil Baker. There will also be a yet-to-be determined ground-floor retail component at the corner of 5th and Walnut. The building will not include a restaurant but will have a fully automated parking garage.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/classifieds/real_estate/Art_Commission_gives_conditional_OK_to_glass_tower_at_5th_and_Walnut.html#deMHlxaFHox30Q3Z.99

Home Values In Philadelphia Region Tumble, Analysis Shows

Full recovery continued to elude the Philadelphia region’s residential real estate market in the first quarter of this year, as the value of a typical home fell 4.9 percent from the last three months of 2013.

University of Pennsylvania economist Kevin Gillen, who analyzed data from 11 area counties for Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Fox & Roach, said Tuesday that with the latest decline, average house prices in the region are “barely above the post-bubble bottom they hit two years ago.”

While sales of 11,000 houses regionally was 10 percent above the same quarter of 2013, the numbers are 41 percent below what Gillen considers the “normal historic average.”

Suburban price declines were greater than the city’s during the quarter – 5.3 percent versus 4 percent, Gillen said.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/classifieds/real_estate/20140528_Home_values_in_region_tumble__analysis_shows.html#xlQrIJ1HYPRfOJyx.99

Drexel, Amtrak, Brandywine Weigh Giant Development Plans

English: 30th Street Station In Philadelphia. Roughly speaking, the center of commuting in Philly, the former center of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Philly’s main Amtrak station (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Officials at Drexel University, Amtrak, Brandywine Realty Trust and other city and West Philly institutions have been sitting down with developers in recent days to review proposals to build over the tracks at 30th Street Station and link the grandiose proposed Drexel Innovation Neighborhood and its high-rise, Rockefeller Center-like “Superblock” at 33rd and Market — whose 6.5 milllion sq ft, by itself, would be more than four times larger than the proposed new Comcast office tower — and other new Drexel-area construction to Center City, highways, the airport, Penn, and, you know, the rest of the world.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/Drexel-Amtrak-Brandywine-weighing-giant-West-Philly-redevelopment.html#cKEU5LqSCK8zdcLb.99

Crossword Creator Marks 100th Birthday With Puzzle

Solution to crossword puzzle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

PHILADELPHIA, PA — What’s a nine-letter word for a significant event? Try MILESTONE.

Longtime crossword constructor Bernice Gordon is marking two big ones: She turned 100 on Saturday, and The New York Times will publish another one of her puzzles on Wednesday — making her the first centenarian to have a grid printed in the newspaper.

“They make my life,” Gordon said. “I couldn’t live without them.”

Gordon has created crosswords for decades for the Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and others, including puzzle syndicates and brain-teaser books from Dell and Simon & Schuster. She still constructs a new grid every day.

Gordon is nearly as old as the crossword puzzle itself. The first “word-cross” appeared in the New York Sunday World on Dec. 21, 1913; it was diamond shaped and didn’t even separate clues into “Across” and “Down.”

Read more: http://www.pottsmerc.com/lifestyle/20140113/crossword-creator-marks-100th-birthday-with-puzzle

Changing Skyline: For A West Schuylkill Site, Time To Bridge Its Moat

English: 30th Street Station In Philadelphia. Roughly speaking, the center of commuting in Philly, the former center of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Philly’s main Amtrak station (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Editor’s note:  There are some really exciting projects going on in Philadelphia as of late.

To hear the champions of Philadelphia’s university district tell it, the west bank of the Schuylkill is poised to give Center City’s skyline a run for its money.

Last week, Brandywine Realty Trust announced plans for its third riverfront skyscraper, a sharply faceted, 47-story office-and-apartment tower at 30th and Walnut Streets. West Philadelphia office space now commands higher rents than the aging behemoths in the city’s legacy downtown. Such is the clamor to live close to the big campuses that at least five residential high-rises are in the works.

It’s nice to see the city’s skyline stretching west. But a clutch of shimmering skyscrapers do not a neighborhood make.

Overlooked in all the hoopla over Brandywine’s latest project, FMC Tower at Cira Centre South, are the conditions on the ground. The site is cut off from the Schuylkill waterfront by a large, triangular moat, which looks down on the train tracks that feed into 30th Street Station and is one of several barriers that make walking there an unpleasant, and often hair-raising, experience.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/home/20131108_Changing_Skyline__For_a_West_Schuylkill__time_to_bridge_its_moat.html#4677tKeG0ScuYbfb.99

Brandywine To Build 47-Story FMC Tower In University City

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Philadelphia County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

FMC Corp. has agreed to move its headquarters from 1745 Market St. in Center City into the new tower that Brandywine Realty Trust has been trying to build, NE corner of 30th and Walnut Sts. in University City, for the past 5 years. The $341 million FMC Tower will rise 47 stories — 650 feet — and include 575,000 sq ft of offices, 10,000 sq ft of retail — plus 260 apartments. Adjoins a 2,000-space parking garage built by Brandywine that also serves IRS workers at Brandywine’s former 30th St post office nearby.

FMC will move its headquarters staff — currently 546 bosses and workers — to the new tower by June 2016, spokesman Jim Fitzwater told me. FMC will lease 253,000 sq ft for 16 years; the University of Pennsylvania will rent another 100,000 sq ft on four floors for 20 years.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/Brandywine-to-build-47-story-West-Philly-tower-FMC-a-tenant.html#w8IKD7yI7Ry0uc0p.99

Aiello’s Criminal Past An Issue?

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Luzerne County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

WILKES-BARRE, PA — Vito J. Aiello had a criminal past. He also, allegedly, had access to a gun.

The city man stands accused of shooting his wife to death Sept. 26, before turning the gun on himself.

And that raises questions about whether Aiello’s history of harassment, terroristic threats, stalking, at least one previous protection-from-abuse order and a request for an involuntary mental-health commitment would — or should — have prevented him from purchasing or possessing firearms.

In Pennsylvania, there are three main types of cases in which gun ownership may be affected, said Susan Sorenson, a professor with the Penn School of Social Policy and Practice with the University of Pennsylvania: certain protection-from-abuse (restraining order) cases, misdemeanor domestic violence convictions or domestic violence crime scenes in which a weapon may be implicated.

Read more: http://www.timesleader.com/news//882873/Aiellos-criminal-past-an-issue

Penn President Gutmann’s Pay Tops $2 Million

English: Author: Stuart Watson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The University of Pennsylvania sharply increased the compensation package for its president, Amy Gutmann, from $1.46 million in 2010-11 to more than $2 million in 2011-12 – a pay boost of 43 percent, according to the university’s latest tax filing.

David L. Cohen, executive vice president of Comcast and chairman of Penn’s board of trustees, said in a statement that Gutmann’s compensation “is very much performance driven, and speaks to the extraordinary success that she has had in recent years.”

Cohen said the trustees “feel that we have the best university president in the country in Amy Gutmann and we believe her compensation should reflect that reality.”

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20130831_Penn_president_Gutmann_s_pay_tops__2_million.html#r8Dc31lcog2pkSVw.99

Children’s Hospital Of Philadelphia Gets $50 Million Gift For Advanced Care Center

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia will announce on Tuesday its biggest gift ever: $50 million toward the $425 million cost of an outpatient center rising on the institution’s University City campus.

The Buerger Center for Advanced Pediatric Care, named for a family that owns a Fort Washington financial-services firm, will become the hub for complex outpatient care in the hospital’s network in Southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The donation is part of a $100 million capital campaign to help pay for the facility, expected to open in 2015. Remaining costs will be paid through additional philanthropy and money from operations.

Spearheading the family’s gift was Reid Buerger, who said his view of Children’s, frequently ranked among the best of its kind nationally, took on deeper significance when he was looking forward to fatherhood several years ago.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20130625_Children_s_Hospital_gets__50_million_gift_for_center.html#d5XYbYJiCEFCdIaI.99

Cops: Nine People Shot In 24 Hours In Philly

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Philadelphia County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Nine people were shot in a 24-hour period in the city this weekend, including six people who were injured in two separate triple shootings, according to police.

The bloodshed began at 11:53 p.m. Friday, when an unknown person or persons opened fire on Parrish Street near 12th in North Philadelphia.  Injured in that hail of gunfire was an 18-year-old man who was shot once in the buttocks and taken to Hahnemann University Hospital in stable condition; a 17-year-old boy who was shot once in the left hip and once in the back and was taken to the same hospital in critical condition; and a 19-year-old man who was shot in the right leg and chest and taken to Hahnemann in stable condition, police said.

Cops did not release a motive or suspects in the shootings.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/Cops-Nine-people-shot-in-24-hours-in-Philly.html#i8LBbMZTWJWdkOzq.99

Schwartz Launches Her 2014 Bid For Governor

English: Official congressional portrait of Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As U.S. REP. Allyson Schwartz gears up for a 2014 gubernatorial campaign, a familiar name is talking about succeeding her in the 13th Congressional District, which covers parts of Philadelphia and Montgomery County.

Marjorie Margolies, a former television reporter who teaches at the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, held that seat for one term, from 1993 to 1995.

She famously lost re-election after changing her 1993 vote on then-President Bill Clinton’s budget, giving him a one-vote margin of victory that broke her promise not to support an increase in federal taxes.

There are no hard feelings, though, since they are now related by marriage – Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, is married to Margolies’ son.

Read more:  http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20130409_Schwartz_launches_her_2014_bid_for_governor.html

A Philly Accent? Fuhgeddaboudit

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Philadelphia County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like most Philadelphia natives, I know the sound of a Philadelphia accent:

“So I tollum straight up, ‘Yo, Paulie, your sister’s wit me.  And we’re gawna ride widges down-ashore or this car don’t make it past Pashunk Avenue!’ ”

And like most Philadelphia natives, I don’t hear any accent in my voice when ordering kawfee at the Melrose or wooder ice at Rita’s.  Yanohwaddamean?

Seriously, me?  An accent?  Fuhgeddaboudit.

Nevertheless, I was disturbed by the recent headline “The Strange Decline of the Philly Accent” in the Atlantic magazine‘s online site, www.theatlanticcities.com.

Read more:  http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20130407_A_Philly_accent__Fuhgeddaboudit.html