Major design changes to a proposed remodeling and expansion of Tacoma’s Proctor Business District Safeway store could pave the way for a construction start on the project next spring.

Those design enhancements – nine months in the making – were designed to address the harsh comments the original design proposal received last summer from neighboring businesses and residents.

The revised design includes windows on the expanded Proctor Street side of the supermarket, exterior artwork that’s keyed to the neighborhood, an indoor-outdoor seating area with a fireplace and a change in exterior materials to brick to more closely mirror the nearby Proctor firehouse.

Critics complained the original design turned a blank wall to the district’s busiest street, Proctor, that the metal artwork featured generic Tacoma images rather than neighborhood-related designs and the choice of exterior materials, tile and metal siding, wasn’t compatible with the neighborhood.

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Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. sold a 5 percent stake of Tacoma's Russell Investments to Nippon Life Insurance Co., the companies said today.

Nippon Life will be a passive investor in Russell, said Northwestern spokeswoman Jean Towell. The Japanese company will have no representative on Russell's board nor will it have any say in Russell's management, she said.

The new agreement, however, will allow Russell to collaborate more closely with Nippon on Japanese business opportunities, said Towell. Russell has had a Tokyo office for more than 20 years.

"This business opportunity is a good one and should prove beneficial to Nippon Life and Northwestern Mutual," said Northwestern President Edward J. Zore. "Nippon Life is a premier long-term investor with a significant international presence, making its investment in Russell a 'win-win' for all parties involved," he said.

Russell is facing setbacks in its international business, an article in Pensions & Investments newspaper's Wednesday edition claims.

Some of those problems are tied to the poor performance of Russell-managed hedge funds of funds, the paper said.

Two of those Russell funds closed in April.

Overseas clients, particularly those in Europe, are increasingly seeking such alternate investments as hedge funds to complement their traditional stocks and bonds portfolios, the paper claimed.

Two key Russell managers departed this month, Jon Bailie, head of alternatives, and Frederic Jolly, Russell's chief executive for Europe.

Russell's Japanese equity investments have also underperformed the norm, the article said.

The deal also includes an investment by Nippon Life in Northwestern’s private equity fund, Nippon Life said in a statement.

Both Nippon Life and Northwestern Mutual are private companies.

Japanese insurers are expanding their alliances with overseas counterparts as the nation’s population declines, shrinking the domestic insurance market. Nippon Life’s move follows smaller Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co.’s purchase of a 24 percent stake in Thailand’s Ocean Life Insurance Co., said the Associated Press.

The Nikkei newspaper reported the tie-up earlier, saying Nippon Life will spend about 30 billion yen for the stake in Russell, without saying where it obtained the information.

Towell said the two companies were not disclosing what Nippon paid for the 5 percent stake in Russell. The $30 billion yen figure, however, is inaccurate, she said.

A present exchange rates, 30 billion yen would be worth roughly $278 million. That would place the value of Russell at $5.58 billion.

Established in 1857, Northwestern Mutual had assets totaling $156.5 billion at the end of December, the statement said. Tacoma-based Russell Investments became a unit of Northwestern in 1999 and had $211 billion in assets under management at the end of June, according to the statement.

Delays in two key programs, one in commercial airplanes and the other in defense, put a dent in Boeing's results for the second quarter reported today.

The 15-month delay in the delivery of the first 787 Dreamliner and a two-year pushback in the delivery Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft to Australia increased Boeing's expenses and delayed expected income from those programs.

Nonetheless, Boeing Chairman Jim McNerney said the company's large backlog and comfortable financial position will allow the company to continue to grow over the long run.

"Strong global demand of our products and services, a record backlog and a sustained focus of productivity improvement and execution will continue to drive growth and profitability for this company," said the company chairman.

Earnings for the full year and for 2009 should be the same as the company had earlier projected:Earnings per share for 2008 should be $5.70 to $5.85 a share; for 2009, they will be $6.80 to $7.00 a share, said James Bell, Boeing's chief financial officer.

The company's revenues were essentially flat for the quarter at $16.96 billion. Earnings from operations fell 17 percent to $1.25 billion. Operating margins fell by 1.4 percentage points to 7.4 percent.

Net income was down 19 percent to $852 million. Earnings per share dropped by 14 percent to $1.16. Without a $248 million write down in the Australian AEWC program, earnings would have been up three cents to $1.38.

Boeing stock fell $2.54 today after the earnings announcement. It closed at $66.72.

Wall Street analysts seemed surprised by the dip in earnings.

Paul Nisbet, an analyst with JSA Research, told the Associated Press that the quarterly results were "poor, surprisingly so."

"The company didn't telegraph anything that would have led us to believe that the costs were going to go up for the infrastructure for the complete commercial airplane operation because of the delay of the 787s," he said in an interview.

"And I think they were remiss in not doing that," Nisbet said. "That was the only real surprise."

Here's an at-a-glance chart I created that summarizes these figures:

On the plus side, Boeing's backlog continued to grow. It totaled $346 billion at the end of the second quarter, up 24 percent from the same quarter.

At the Seattle-based Commercial airplanes division, the backlog grew to $275 billion, some eight times the division's annual revenues.

Both McNerney and Bell said Boeing should be able to handle whatever setbacks the airline industry suffers because of the current fuel and financial crisis.

"We believe we are in a good position to weather the current volatilities," said McNerney.

The company's airliner backlog is so large and so diverse that delivery postponements and cancellations can be absorbed without major production rollbacks or layoffs as the company has experienced in previous downturns, they said.

Only 10 percent of the company's orders for new airliners, for instance, consist of orders from U.S. carriers. And Boeing continues to add to its eight-year backlog with annual orders well in excess of annual production rates.

The company expects to produce 475 to 480 commercial jets in 2008 and 500 to 505 in 2009. Through July 15, Boeing has booked 542 orders for new airliners this year.

The company's aircraft leasing arm, Boeing Capital Corp. stands ready to help airlines acquire new aircraft should they need financial assistance, said Bell.

Costco Wholesale Corp. told investors this morning that its earnings will miss Wall Street expectations. The retailer is struggling with higher energy costs that are hurting its profits.

Shares in the nation’s no. 1 warehouse club operator plummeted more than 12 percent in morning trading Wednesday.

At 7:35 a.m. shares were trading at $65.88, down $6.12 or 8.5 percent.

Here's what The Associated Press is reporting:

The outlook reflects weakness in the company’s gasoline operations and slightly lower-than-planned merchandise profits as Costco holds back on price increases to drive sales. Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti said in a statement that the lower outlook came “largely from inflation, particularly as to energy costs.”

Amid those energy prices, Costco and other low-price retailers face a dilemma of whether to raise prices on merchandise — which could cost them customers — or hold down prices, which hurt margins, said Ken Perkins, president of RetailMetrics LLC, a research company in Swampscott, Mass.

Perhaps you’ve heard the ads on radio – the ones featuring Hayden D. “Hayes” Barnard. Need a mortgage? Just call Paramount Equity Mortgage.

And if you did, then you might be in for some restitution.

The State Department of Financial Institutions late yesterday announced the agency intends to revoke Paramount’s license to do business in Washington, and fine Paramount $500,000, and require that the company pay investigation and examination costs, plus require that restitution be paid “to any applicant or borrower harmed by (Paramount’s) violations of the Mortgage Broker Practices Act.”

The company made more than 1,700 mortgage loans to Washington borrowers in 2007, collecting more than $8.7 million in fees, said a DFI release.

The agency accuses California-based Paramount “of charging and collecting unearned fees, charging consumers to buy down interest rates without actually reducing the rate, failing to make required disclosures and making state and federally required disclosures in a deceptive manner.”

Deb Bortner, director of DFI’s Division of Consumer Services, said Tuesday, “Paramount failed to make proper disclosures in almost every loan we reviewed. In today’s market, we simply do not need a mortgage broker engaged in deceptive conduct doing business in this state.”

Calls to Paramount’s offices in King County and Spokane were not returned late Tuesday, nor was a call to Hayes himself. Three people who answered, however, promised that someone would get back to me.

I’ll start the clock.

If you feel that you’re due some money out of this, click here for a link, or visit www.dfi.wa.gov for more information.

UPDATE: Wednesday afternoon I spoke with Jason Bloom, chairman of Elliott Bay Mortgage in Seattle and incoming president of the Washington Association of Mortgage Brokers. He later issued a statement:

"WAMB supports all regulatory oversight that ensures consumers are protected by mortgage brokers and lenders who hold themselves out to the highest levels of professional service. We secured passage of loan originator licensing in our state and if any individual or company is found guilty of wrong-doing, WAMB supports their removal from the industry."