Another grocery store planned for downtown Tacoma, as reported in Dan Voelpel’s column today, isn’t necessarily in downtown. At least according to The News Tribune’s style guide. Or the Tacoma Downtown Merchants Group. But it is if you consult the city’s generous and recently reconfigured boundaries, which include Port property across the Foss Waterway.

These wide-ranging interpretations of downtown boundaries got us talking about where exactly downtown starts and ends. The newspaper’s definition would put some supposedly downtown condo projects, such as City Steps and McCarver Village, in the Hilltop. Along with the grocery store at South 25th Street and Yakima Avenue planned by Metropolitan Real Estate Development.

What do you think? Your feedback could be used to redefine the paper’s definition of downtown.

Here's a look at the city's take on downtown boundaries:

And the TNT's take on the boundaries:

Frontier Financial Crop., Everett-based parent of Frontier Bank, has announced first-quarter earnings of $17.5 million, up 13.6 percent from the first quarter of 2006. Per-share income rose three cents to 38 cents, an increase of 8.6 percent.

President and CEO John Dickson said the company “achieved solid growth in both the the first quarter and year-over-year net income, loans and deposits.”

Loans have increased by 13 percent, or $346.6 million, since the first quarter of 2006. New loan originations for the quarter were $489.6 million, compared with $400.5 million in 2006, a 22.3 percent increase.
At the close of the quarter, nonperforming assets were.35 percent of total assets compared to .17 percent a year ago. total assets stood at $3.32 billion, an increase of 10.1 percent over the first quarter of 2006.

The bank’s efficiency ratio, at .38 percent one of the best in the industry, was down from .41 percent a year ago.

It just could be fashionable to be Amazon.com again after a surprisingly strong earnings announcement.

The Internet merchant's stock, a darling of the dot.com era, but a languid performer since the bust, surged $12.06, or 27 percent, to end at $56.81 on the Nasdaq Stock Market today after the company reported first quarter profits had more than doubled.

"They're getting their mojo back," David Garrity, research director at Dinosaur Securities, told the Associated Press.

Analysts said the company's $1 billion investment in new technology over the last two years was finally paying, and the company's controversial free shipping program, Amazon Prime, was generating new sales. Some of those same analysts had been critical in the past of that spending and the shipping program.

Amazon reported its first quarter 2007 profits rose to $111 million, or 26 cents a share, from $51 million, or 12 cents a share in last year's first quarter.

Helping those profits along was a $12 million reduction in the company's taxes and a further drop in the value of the dollar versus European currencies, a move that made U.S. goods cheaper for foreign consumers.

Revenues rose 32 percent to $3.02 billion. Wall Street had predicted revenues of $2.95 billion.

In its 26th annual Survey of Affluent Americans, released this week, U.S. Trust says 84 percent of high-net-worth individuals (those with more than $5 million of investable assets) say they built their wealth by starting from scratch.

In other findings from the survey:
• 80 percent of high-net-worth individuals agree that children should be taught that wealth is a responsibility.
• 53 percent are concerned about the negative impact of wealth on children.
• 55 percent view hedge funds as delivering a “very good” return on investment, but 76 percent said it is difficult to identify a good hedge fund.
• 68 percent say they will consider leaving money to academic institutions, while 66 percent name health-related institutions.
• Over the past fiscal year, 85 percent said their portfolios met (45 percent) or exceeded (40 percent) their expectations. A large majority said domestic stocks (81 percent) and real estate (80 percent) provided the greatest returns.
• 51 percent said U.S. stocks are becoming riskier, and 18 percent said they were planning to move away from the market – versus 8 percent who said they plan to move away from international stocks.
• 74 percent worry that the U.S. is losing its competitive edge in the world economy and 71 percent worry that high taxes will reduce the level of their estate.

As to high-net-worth individuals in the South Sound, U.S. Trust reports that of 284,788 households in Pierce County, 23,246 enjoy a net worth of over $1 million. Those over $5 million number 2,056. Fully 6,137 have investable assets of $2 million or more.

Wall Street was already bullish on Boeing, but the company this morning beat analysts' high expectations by a hefty margin.

The Chicago-based company reported first quarter earnings of $1.13 a share, up 28 percent from last year's first quarter. Earnings predictions from sixteen aerospace analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research had averaged $1.03 before the announcement.

Profits rose faster than revenues (up 8 percent) on strong sales of both commercial airplanes and military equipment.

Some numbers of note:

* Boeing delivered 106 airliners in the first quarter.

* Commercial backlog grew to a record $188 billion.

* Customers ordered 189 airliners in the first quarter.

* While commercial airplane revenues rose $500 million to $7.6 billion in the first quarter, the company's commercial airplane margins dropped to 9.3 percent from 10 percent.

* The same story was true on the defense side of the house where revenues rose $500 million to $7.7 billion, but profit margins eroded to 10.2 percent from 11.4 percent in the year earlier quarter.

* Earnings forecasts from Boeing held steady with predictions of earnings per share for 2007 at $4.55 to 4.75 and $5.55 to $5.75 next year.