Gary gauges interest for Genesis Center redevelopment
The city of Gary on Thursday released a request for interest, or RFI, for the redevelopment of the downtown Genesis Convention Center.
'We are committed to creating a vibrant and thriving downtown Gary,' Mayor Eddie Melton said in a Thursday news release. 'Reactivating the Genesis Center is a cornerstone of that vision. This RFI is an open call to partners who see the potential in Gary and want to be part of this transformation.'
A RFI typically comes before a request for proposal and collects information on groups or partners that might be interested in a property.
The deadline for questions is 5 p.m. July 21, according to city documents. Ideas are due by noon on Aug. 8, and city officials anticipate to issue the request for proposals this fall.
Key goals of the project including preserving the convention center's historical significance; introducing flexible and functional design elements; supporting arts, entertainment, commerce and civic events; and stimulating local economic development and workforce opportunities.
The city is open to redevelopment approaches that might allow for reuse of the existing convention center structure or a new mixed-use development at the site.
Gary will implement and fund demolition for the convention center, according to RFI documents. The city also plans to demolish the on-site parking garage this year due to 'a deteriorated structural condition.'
The Genesis Center was built in 1981. In January 2021, the city sold the property to Akyumen Industries, which planned to use the facility as its corporate headquarters and temporary manufacturing site, according to Post-Tribune archives. The company agreed to buy the property for $2.5 million with $150,000 due on closing.
The remainder had to be paid within 180 days before the property reverted back to the city, according to archives.
City officials previously said in July 2021 that Gary did not receive the full $2.5 million by its deadline.
'With the Lake County Convention Center now officially confirmed for Gary — right next to the Hard Rock Casino on Burr Street — the city is in a stronger position to meaningfully plan the future of this site,' said the city's Thursday news release.
The Genesis Center is one of the various downtown Gary properties included in the city's master plan with the University of Notre Dame's Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative.
In August 2024, the university and city announced they would work together to revitalize the city, and the plan was announced at the end of May.
In a December interview with the Post-Tribune, Gary Mayor Eddie Melton said he was dedicated to deliver on blight elimination projects and lay a foundation for the city's growth.
As state senator, Melton created Senate Bill 434, which established the blighted property demolition fund and allows the city to receive $6 million from the state of Indiana for blight elimination. The city had to match those funds, with half coming from American Rescue Plan Act funds and $3 million from the Hard Rock casino.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Should You Buy Berkshire Hathaway While It's Below $500?
Berkshire Hathaway was one of the best-performing large cap stocks of 2025 until Warren Buffett announced his retirement. Since the announcement, Berkshire has lost about 11% of its value. Long-term investors who buy now could be getting a bargain. 10 stocks we like better than Berkshire Hathaway › Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A)(NYSE: BRK.B) has been one of the more interesting stock market stories of 2025. When the S&P 500 briefly plunged into bear market territory in April after the president's reciprocal tariff announcements, Berkshire held up quite well. In fact, Berkshire's stock reached a fresh all-time high a few weeks later and as of early May was one of the best-performing large cap stocks in the market. However, at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting, legendary investor and CEO Warren Buffett dropped a bombshell on investors and announced that he intends to step down at the end of the year. In just over a month since that time, Berkshire has lost more than 10% of its market value. Historically, a 10% correction in Berkshire Hathaway stock has been an excellent time to buy. However, this time looks a little different. For one thing, even after falling 10%, Berkshire is still beating the S&P 500 over the past year. Second, is Berkshire a good buy even without Warren Buffet? There are two things to unpack here: Can Berkshire still be a great investment in the post-Warren Buffett era? With a valuation of more than $1 trillion, even after a 10% decline, is Berkshire attractively valued as a business? To be sure, these are somewhat a matter of opinion. But let's try to answer both of these questions. First, it's important to acknowledge that there's a lot that won't change when Buffett steps down. Just to name a few key points: Each of Berkshire's subsidiary businesses has its own management team, and there's very little oversight from Berkshire's corporate office. After Buffett steps down, new CEO Greg Abel will still oversee the company's non-insurance operations, and Vice Chairman Ajit Jain will still preside over the insurance businesses. Investment managers Ted Weschler and Todd Combs will still help allocate money in the stock portfolio. Buffett is planning to remain in an executive chairman role, so he still has significant influence. Arguably, the biggest changes will be that Greg Abel, not Buffett, will have final say over what the company does with its nearly $350 billion cash stockpile, and Buffett won't be picking stocks in the portfolio. However, I'd push back on the fact that these will be major changes. Abel knows Buffett's capital deployment strategies better than anyone and will use the same general investment framework in place now. And with the stock portfolio, Weschler and Combs have established an excellent track record. In fact, one of them was initially responsible for Berkshire's Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) investment -- its most successful of all time. There are three main parts of Berkshire Hathaway: its operating businesses, its stock portfolio, and its cash. The latter two are very straightforward to value. As of the latest information, Berkshire has about $348 billion in cash and short-term investments, and its stock portfolio has a market value of $279.4 billion. Subtracting these from its market cap of $1.049 trillion shows that the company's operating businesses are valued at $421.6 billion. Over the past four quarters, excluding investment income, Berkshire's operating profit has been about $33 billion. This means that Berkshire's businesses are trading for an exceptionally low valuation of less than 13 times earnings despite being a largely recession-resistant collection of companies with reliable cash flow. Of course, this valuation is a bit of an oversimplification. Berkshire's subsidiaries are a diverse collection of different industries, growth rates, and business dynamics, and looking at the price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple for any investment is just one piece of the valuation puzzle. But the point is that despite its trillion-dollar valuation, Berkshire isn't as expensive of a stock as you might assume. At a share price of about $488 as I'm writing this, Berkshire isn't as attractive as it was a year ago when its share price was 20% lower. But there are some good reasons for the strong performance, and the reality is that the business isn't going to change as much as you might think after Buffett steps down, and a 11% decline in the stock seems to be a bit of an overreaction. After all, Buffett turns 95 this year, so although the announcement was unexpected, the fact that he won't be at the helm much longer really shouldn't be a surprise. Berkshire Hathaway is one of my largest stock investments and one I've added to many times over the decade or so I've held it. I have absolutely no plans to sell a single share, and although I have no clue what Berkshire's stock price will do over the coming weeks or months, there's a solid case to be made that this is a buying opportunity for long-term investors. Before you buy stock in Berkshire Hathaway, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Berkshire Hathaway wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $657,871!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $875,479!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 998% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 174% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 Matt Frankel has positions in Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple and Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Should You Buy Berkshire Hathaway While It's Below $500? was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Thomas Frank's Tottenham in-tray: style, injuries, the defence and Levy
Embrace the glory game Early in Ange Postecoglou's reign, Spurs fans chanted: 'We've got our Tottenham back.' The Australian departed as a cult hero after a Europa League triumph but in Bilbao his team had played nothing like the 'glory game' of club lore, instead hanging on for dear life. And that was a marked improvement on the sludge served up at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, amid 22 Premier League defeats. Is Thomas Frank the manager to return Spurs to the days of Bill Nicholson or Keith Burkinshaw? With the right players and a trailing wind, it's not impossible. Before promotion to the Premier League, Frank's Brentford played an attractive hybrid passing and pressing game, only to readjust to the division above with a style that at first seemed agricultural, a playing of the margins, though one that embraced attack rather than defence as the means of survival. Frank does not shun creative players; Christian Eriksen's signing in January 2022 was a masterstroke, while Mikkel Damsgaard's awkward running belies a playmaker of high quality and high output. Last season, Bryan Mbeumo, Yoane Wissa and Kevin Schade were in double figures for Premier League goals. No other team attacked with such fearlessness. Manage upwards and effectively The key to survival – and path to the exit – at Spurs is the chair and minority shareholder, Daniel Levy. Postecoglou is no political animal, rarely rocking the boat. Instead, his team's results meant Levy's name was taken in vain, particularly among away fans. Hopes of Levy taking his ball home are unlikely to be fulfilled in the near future and a new executive structure is in place. Levy's long-serving adjutant Donna Cullen, the executive director, has departed. Incoming as the chief executive is Vinai Venkatesham, credited as the brains behind Arsenal's post-Wenger rebirth. Another departure is that of Postecolgou's compatriot Scott Munn as chief football officer. Spurs have a far more corporate outlook than the family atmosphere at Brentford, though the latter are a well-structured, model club with Matthew Benham as a similarly pre-eminent principal. Benham was happy for Frank to be the charismatic frontman for the club in the style of Jürgen Klopp. The Dane is collegiate and worked closely with Phil Giles, Brentford's highly regarded director of football. Frank was also open to analytics – Benham's specialism – as a useful means to an end. Efforts to get Levy to spend are the rocks on which many Spurs managers' hopes have dashed. Finances are healthy, too. Can the new regime get that Champions League revenue spent on a comprehensive rebuild? That may be beyond Frank's pay grade. Smile for the cameras Frank will need self-belief and equilibrium to cope with his new job's higher pressures. For all his alpha-male quips, Postecoglou was more shy than brash. In his second season an irritation with his media workload was painfully apparent. 'Big Ange' was bored of repeating himself, though suffered for a lack of variety in his responses. Staring into the floor often suggested a lack of conviction in an idealism he would abandon. Frank has an inmate pragmatism and is a very quotable media performer, even-tempered and patient, happy to answer the lowest-level queries with grace. He will, though, occasionally show off the steel his players doubtless often feel. The overriding quality that kept Brentford in the Premier League was the Dane's relentless competitive nature. Bringing Tottenham sustained success will demand that quality in spades. It has been absent for far too long. Keep the squad unified – and healthy An ability to improve players beyond expected capabilities was hugely important to Brentford. Take Keane Lewis-Potter, signed from Hull as a forward but converted into a speedy, now coveted left-back/wing-back. Can Frank's man-management motivate Tottenham's squad, larger and full of players who may feel they have less to prove? A Champions League schedule, eight games minimum, will reduce Frank's time on the training pitch but offers more leeway than the Thursday-Sunday treadmill that unbalanced last season's Premier League campaign. There is real talent within the squad, especially in the teenagers Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall, though they need protection from burnout. James Maddison, occasionally brilliant for Postecoglou, often inconsistent, can be indulged, though every player under Frank is asked to give everything. Brentford players made 5,500 sprints last season, compared with Spurs' 6,250, towards the top of the Premier League, but nowhere near as onerously or damagingly. Tottenham finished third in end-of-season injury table with 22, while Brentford were 14th with 12. Sort out that defence Frank was not without injury problems last season. He spent much of the first half of the campaign without first-choice defenders and so opted for an all-out-attack approach. Brentford developed a regular habit of scoring goals in the opening seconds, catching opponents cold. Stopping Spurs conceding goals is a time-honoured, decades-stretching task but Postecoglou's teams were desperately weak on set pieces, a key strength for Brentford, England's finishing school for set-piece coaches. If Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero stay fit and can be retained – Atlético Madrid want the Argentinian – Frank has a high-class central pairing, but the discipline and organisation of those around them must improve.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Editorial: Chicago's Springfield delegation socks it to the city's taxpayers with reckless pension bill
The fiscal hits just keep coming for Chicago, this time courtesy of the city's representatives and senators in Springfield. The latest fiasco played out in the final hours of the General Assembly's spring session, with the passage of legislation sweetening pension benefits for Chicago police and firefighters hired beginning in 2011, the first year of less generous 'Tier 2' benefits ironically meant to help the state and municipalities close their yawning pension deficits. The measure was passed so hurriedly that city officials appeared caught flat-footed and weren't able to say how much the changes will cost Chicago taxpayers over the long haul. Rest assured, though, the tax bill will be substantial. Chicago Chief Financial Officer Jill Jaworski, who lodged her opposition to the bill on behalf of the city shortly before its passage, told senators it would cost the city an estimated $52 million beginning in 2027, its first year in effect. Chicago faces a deficit exceeding $1 billion in 2026 and a similarly daunting hole for 2027. Here's how seriously Springfield took Jaworski's objections: The bill passed unanimously in both chambers. After voicing some opposition in committee, Republicans voted for it on the floor mainly because Chicago's Springfield delegation was in unanimous support. After all, there isn't a single GOP House member or senator from Chicago, and the bill raises taxes in Chicago alone. 'I think a lot in the Republican caucus said, 'Well, if this is what all of the voices representing Chicago want to do, who are we to disagree with them?'' Republican state Sen. Li Arellano Jr. from downstate Dixon told the Tribune. Many Chicago lawmakers will be boasting as we approach yet another campaign season about how they held the line on income and sales taxes in a particularly tight budget year in Springfield. Voters shouldn't be fooled. Every single one of those legislators acted to force inevitable future property tax hikes. Pension contributions are mainly funded by property taxes. Jaworski in her fruitless arguments against the bill called it an 'unfunded mandate.' And indeed it is. Arguments for the measure — which will raise the ceilings for annual pension payments, drive up those annual payouts for many beneficiaries via formulaic challenges in how they're determined, and boost cost-of-living increases — principally relied on fairness. Downstate police and fire retirees got those richer pension changes in 2019 when their disparate pension funds were consolidated. Since then, unions representing Chicago first responders have argued for the same treatment. We understand the desire to reward police officers and firefighters, who especially in the city of Chicago perform dangerous work and deserve our gratitude. But a pension, however sweet, won't be worth much if it helps drive the sponsor — in this case the city of Chicago — into insolvency. As of the end of 2023, Chicago's police pension fund held just 21.7% of the assets needed to meet its current and future obligations. Depressingly, that status was slightly worse than the 21.8% recorded in 2018. The city's firefighters fund was slightly worse off, with 21.6% of the assets required to be considered fully funded. The two funds at year-end 2023 together accounted for about $20 billion of Chicago's total $37 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. Joe Ferguson, president of the Civic Federation, told the Tribune he thought the state legislation would add billions to the two funds' long-term liabilities. With the plans so severely underfunded, just about the last thing rational people would do right now would be to add substantially to their liabilities. But that's what lawmakers just did. And where was Mayor Brandon Johnson in this debate? He and his intergovernmental affairs team seemed to be missing in action when it came to this extraordinarily damaging bill. It's troubling that lawmakers voted unanimously for a measure with such serious fiscal implications — and so little cost analysis. Who other than CFO Jaworski was raising alarms? The Johnson administration has made annual contributions to the city's retirement plans over and above what's required in law through a series of tough budgets. Those taxpayer contributions, well into the billions each year now, make no dent in these pension deficits if officeholders keep moving the goalposts farther away through more generous benefits. Common sense must prevail at some point. As difficult and embarrassing as it would be given the unanimous votes, Johnson ought to ask Gov. JB Pritzker to veto this bill in the interest of negotiating something more reasonable. And if the mayor won't do so, Pritzker should wield his veto pen anyway. Someone — anyone — with the power to do so needs to protect Chicago taxpayers. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@
