Alaska Airlines has once again asked the federal Department of Transportation to investigate whether its West Coast rival, Virgin America Airlines, meets the goverment's ownership rules.

Today's request to the DOT was the third from Alaska which contends that San Francisco's Virgin America may be controlled by Britain's Virgin Group.

Federal rules require that domestic airlines have no more than 25 percent foreign ownership.

Media reports in March said Virgin's American investors had requested to be cashed out of their investments in the airline in accord with their investment contracts.

Virgin contends those investors still hold title to a majority of the airline stock.

Alaska suggested that while the Americans may retain title, they may have no real power because they don't have a financial interest in the carrier.

Virgin America and SeaTac-based Alaska have been engaged in a West Coast fare war since Virgin started service more than a year ago.

The Port of Tacoma is again offering free boat tours of its terminals and waterways.

Those free tours will leave from 535 Dock St. on the Thea Foss Waterway on Aug. 30 during Maritime Fest.

Departures will be at 10 a.m., noon, 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Passengers will be accommodated on a first-come basis.

Tour takers in wheelchairs or with disabilities should take the 4 p.m. departure, the port advised. The tide then will make boarding the boat easier.

For more information, call 253-597-7564.

A foreclosure auction for a major downtown Tacoma waterfront condominium building attracted more spectators than bidders this morning outside the County-City Building.

And when the short bidding was done, the lender for the 8-story Esplanade condominium, IStar Financial Inc. of New York, emerged the auction's winner with a price of $7 million.

Some two dozen spectators watched as attorney Greg Fox read the lengthy auction documents in a light rain outside the second-floor entrance to the government building and then began the auction process about 10:15 a.m.

The sole outside bidder, Northwest businessman Chuck Tomas, halted his bidding at $6.1 million as the bank successively topped each of his bids.

Tomas is an investor whose 140-yacht was tied up for weeks this summer on the Foss Waterway near the condo building. That yacht, a former Canadian fisheries patrol boat, was undergoing an interior renovation.

The bank offered its bids to defend the $46 million already lent to help build the 162-unit condo building on the Thea Foss Waterway.

Had the trustee for the auction accepted another bidder's low offer for the building, the bank's interest in the structure would have been erased at price far less than that which it had invested as lender.

By winning the bidding, Istar gains title to the building except for the 11 condo units sold to private owners.

It is now free to pursue deals with potential acquirers interested in buying the entire structure or with individual condo buyers.

The News Tribune asked the bank about its plans for the building, but it had not responded by early Friday afternoon.

IStar Financial is a lender specializing in loaning money to developers and builders of commercial office buildings, retail buildings and other larger structures.

Hit by reversals in the commercial development market, IStar Financial recorded losses of $2.93 a share in this year's second quarter

The condo building was constructed after the Thea Foss Development Authority five years ago held a contest to pick a developer for the tract on the west side of the formerly industrial waterway.

California developer Mark Ossola won the right to build on the parcel and an adjacent property.

The adjacent property was to be an hotel site, but an hotel was never built. The waterway authority is now negotiating with a new hotel developer, Hollander Hotel Group Inc. of Bellingham, to build on that land.

The condo project took longer to plan and construct than anticipated. The building hit the market two years ago just as the housing market turned downward.
The market for retail spaces on Dock Street also failed to develop as hoped, and none of the retail storefronts in the building ever leased.

The building at 1720 Pacific Ave. has been home to a wholesale grocery, a paper company, a stove manufacturing business, a candy company, a glove maker, and a number of car-related businesses, including a Firestone Tire store and both Studebaker and Oldsmobile distributors.

Not bad for its first 117 years.

Now the Russell T. Joy building becomes part of the University of Washington Tacoma's fast-growing campus.

Demolition work started Thursday, and the renovation will complete the four-block Pacific Avenue face of the campus. It's scheduled to be completed in the spring of 2011.

“This fall, over 3,000 students will study on this campus, and we are short on space,” said UW Tacoma Chancellor Pat Spakes said at an event marking the beginning of the work. “We need more classrooms, and we need more faculty and staff offices. We need a permanent home for our largest academic unit, the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences program. Renovation of the Joy Building will accomplish all of that.”

The building’s plan includes retail space on the ground floor, although the exact amount of footage has not yet been determined, according to a news release from the university.

Construction work begins this fall. As it has done with other renovations along Pacific Avenue, the university will try to salvage and reuse things from the building such as old-growth fir beams.

The Joy Building renovation is part of a $34 million capital construction package from the Washington State Legislature, the news release said, intended to stimulate the economy by providing construction jobs. This support also includes funding for the addition and renovation of three labs in the Science Building — already under way — and building infrastructure to support future campus construction up the hill.

When the Joy Building opens in 2011, one-third of the planned 46-acre campus in Tacoma's Warehouse District will be complete.

Russell T. Joy came to Tacoma in 1888 and worked as a clerk for the Tacoma Land Company, the news release said. Soon after, he went into business as a builder and real estate developer. In 1892, he commissioned three buildings to be constructed in the Warehouse District, including the one that bears his name. The architects were Pickles and Sutton, a firm that designed many buildings in Tacoma, including the National Bank of Tacoma.

Karen LaFlamme, spokeswoman for the Puyallup Fair, writes with an update on employment at the September event.

As of yesterday, she said, "the WorkSource Employment Office at the Puyallup Fair has met with 3,500 applicants and referred them to employers for interviews."

There were originally 3,000 jobs offered, and this year saw the largest first-day crowd of applicants in recent memory.

The employment service continues to accept applications for backup positions, LaFlamme said, and will continue to do so through the last day of the Fair, Sept. 27.

Some Fair employers are reviewing their employee lists, and may still have hiring needs, so some from the backup lists may be hired, she said.