Midwest Airlines will stop flying Boeing 717s Nov. 3 and return them to Boeing, the company's pilots union said today.

Midwest was one of the larger customers for Boeing's 717. The airline is now down to nine of the jets after returning some of its fleet earlier to the manufacturer.

The end of 717 service was brought about by the airline's purchase by Republic Airways which is replacing the Midwest Jets with Embraer 190 jets it owns and operates.

Midwest flies from Sea-Tac to Kansas City non-stop. The airline hasn't said whether the route will be affected by the 717's retirements.

Seventy-five years of Chevrolet sales at North First Street and Division Avenue end today with the closure of Bruce Titus Chevrolet.

The dealership was among 1,100 General Motors told last spring that it wouldn't renew their franchises in October 2010.

"Our lease was up in March, so I just decided we should take an opportunity to get out when we had a good chance," said dealership owner Bruce Titus.

Titus sold the car repair business to his cousin Jamie Will. Will plans to open a service and tire repair business today in the former Chevrolet garage Thursday.

The former Bruce Titus lots across North First Street from the dealership are expected to become independent used car dealers.

The federal government's "Cash for Clunkers" program helped Titus pare down his inventory before the closure. The remaining new Chevrolets he sold to his cousin for his Titus-Will Chevrolet dealership in Olympia.

"I think it will be a good deal for the neighborhood," said Titus. "They'll still have a place to get their cars serviced in the North End, and it will save the jobs of a number of my former employees."

Meanwhile on the building's ground floor, Stadium Thriftway is expanding its footprint into part of a bodyshop.

The demise of Bruce Titus Chevrolet ends some 75 years of new car sales in the building. Titus had owned the Chevy franchise there for five years. Friendly Chevrolet had occupied the building for half-a-dozen years before that.

Walker Chevrolet, Friendly's predecessor, had been in the building since 1934, said Rick Fields, service manager at the new repair business.

Titus said that absent General Motors' notice that his franchise would be ended, he would still be in business at 633 Division Avenue.

"We did a nice business there," he said. "The facility was getting a little old, but it fit in well in the North End."

General Motors is reducing its dealer network to match it better its reduced car sales market share and overall new car sales declines.

The nation's largest car maker reorganized its operations under bankruptcy. In the process, in addition to closing dealerships, the company announced it was ditching its Pontiac brand and shuttering plants throughout the U.S.

Today the company announced it was shut down its Saturn operations after negotiations to sell it to the Penske Automotive Group collapsed.

Bruce Titus won't be out of the car business with the Chevrolet dealership closure. He has seven other new car stores in his automotive group.

Sea-Tac Airport is changing how it labels the two parking options in its multi-story terminal garage.

Instead of the present "Hourly" and "Daily", the two different parking options will become "Terminal Direct" and "General Parking."

Perhaps more descriptive labels would be "Expensive" and "Not Quite as Expensive."

"Terminal Direct" parking will be on the garage's fourth floor, the same floor as the skybridges to the terminal. "General Parking" will be on other floors of the garage where you'll have to take an elevator or stairs to the fourth floor to reach the terminal.

The rates will be $3 an hour for General Parking and $4 an hour for Terminal Direct. On a daily basis, the convenience of the fourth floor will cost $35. General Parking will be $26 a day.

Boeing is mulling over whether to propose a new aircraft specifically designed to replace the Air Force's fleet of 550 T-38 trainers.

That's the word from Flight International which says the company may enter the $10 billion contest to replace the basic Air Force jet trainer with a new design.

The Air Force has expected only existing aircraft such as the Alenia Aermacchi M-346 and the Korea Aerospace Industries-Lockheed Martin T-50 to enter the contest.

The M-346 is built in Italy. The T-50 is assembled in Korea.

A contract for hundreds of trainer aircraft would keep Boeing's St. Louis factories busy for years. The aircraft built there now, the F-15 and F-18 fighters, are aging and will end their production in a few years.

The Air Force's folo-on fighter, the F-35, is being built by Lockheed Martin.

The Tacoma City Council wants more time to consider whether it gives approval to an agreement that would allow construction of a new hotel on downtown Tacoma's Thea Foss Waterway.

Council member Spiro Manthou told fellow council members at a study session at noon today that several legal questions require further study.

The council delayed consideration of an environmental indemnification agreement for the hotel two weeks ago after council member Connie Ladenburg said she wanted more information on the hotel proposal. The measure had been due to hit the council agenda tonight.

The indemnification agreement would define the city's and the developer's responsibilities should unforseen environmental issues emerge during construction and later.

But the council's delay has not been so much over environmental concerns as it has been over the quality of the hotel design, union issues and the developer's track record in supporting the Tacoma convention business.

Hollander Investments of Bellingham is proposing to build two hotels and an office building on the site just north of the Thea's Landing condo project on the east side of the Waterway on Dock Street.

One, hotel, a Marriott Residence Inn, would be erected first with the second hotel and office structure to follow within a few years.

Manthou said the council's approval of the environmental indemnification agreement may not be necessary. The site's present owner, Seattle hotelier Robert Thurston, may be able to transfer the existing agreement to Hollander as part of the sale.

But city lawyers say the city may wish to modify the agreement to deal with the possibility of subsequent division of the property and sale to different owners.

Don Meyer, the Foss Waterway Authority director, told the council that he shared their desire to have a hotel built on the waterway that Tacomans could point to with pride.

Ladenburg has said she doesn't want a freeway-style hotel built on the waterfront property.

Meyer assured council members that the authority wouldn't allow a cookie-cutter hotel to be built on the site.

Hollander's existing downtown hotel, a Marriott Courtyard Hotel near the Tacoma Convention Center, has been criticized for looking too much like a suburban hotel.

"We don't expect to see what we have on Pacific Avenue on the waterway from this group," Meyer assured the council. The existing Marriott is on Pacific Avenue.

Both Hollander and the waterway authority have told council members they must act quickly because the hotel's shoreline permits will expire in March unless construction is started by then.

The authority has spent the last five years holding the hands of two developers who were unable to get a hotel built on the site.

Meyer said after the meeting that Hollander is one of the rare developers who has the financial muscle to get a hotel built during lean economic times like now.

Restoration of Amtrak service from Seattle to Denver through Eastern Oregon, Utah and Wyoming would cost some $374 million for refurbished equipment, restoring depots and infrastructure improvements, a new study says.

The route, which Amtrak abandoned in 1997, operated as the Pioneer.

The new study says a Denver-to-Seattle route via Tacoma would attract 111,000 passengers and incur an operating loss of $33.1 million annually. A route that reached only Salt Lake City from Seattle would have a loss of $25 million a year.

Idaho and Oregon politicians have been lobbying for restoration of the service which was stopped because of operating losses.

TUI Travel is negotiating to cancel 10 of the 23 orders it has secured with Boeing for the company's 787 Dreamliner, Flightglobal.com reported today.

The European tour operator, however, will add purchase rights for an additional 13 of the twin-engine aircraft.

The company said in an update Tuesday: "We have been in extensive discussions with Boeing, and it is the intention of both parties to agree to cancel 10 of the 23 787 aircraft that we had on order."

The 787 is more than two years late making its first flight because of production, design and labor issues. Boeing has already lost 60 some orders for the aircraft.

Tentative plans released today in permit filings in South Carolina show Boeing wants to clear some 80 acres of forest land to build a 720,000-square-foot assembly plant in Charleston.

The plant presumably would be the second assembly site for Boeing's 787 Dreamliner.

Boeing says it is filing for the permits to get a head start on plant construction if it decides on Charleston for the second assembly line for the Dreamliner.

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire Monday released a new report enumerating reasons why that second assembly line should be built in Everett or Moses Lake.

Boeing's existing assembly line is in Everett for the 767.

Charleston's major advantage would be it status as a largely non-union state. That means lower wages and benefits than in Everett and no possibility of strikes.

Julia Ellen, the upscale boutique that's called Proctor home for 15 years, is closing its doors.

"I've done this for 32 years total, 20 years of owning my own, and you hit the point where you are done," owner Julie Schmidtke said today. "We decided this was the best time of year to have a big closing sale."

It started Thursday, and the store will close when everything's gone, she said.

Schmidtke said that she started about 18 months ago to try to find a buyer for the store but that all of them fell through.

To get into business "you have to have more faith than fear," she said, and in this economic climate fear is a hot commodity despite the fact that Julia Ellen's annual revenues are between $500,000 and $1 million.

Julia Ellen, which is Schmidtke's first and middle names, opened 20 years ago in Old Town, then moved to the Proctor District five years later. Schmidtke briefly opened a store in Tacoma mall six years ago, but it closed after three years.

Schmidtke, who put her age at "almost 50," said she didn't have any specific plans after Julia Ellen closes, but that she has been approached by other people who want her advice on opening their own business.

"We really wanted to close with the same integrity and special-ness that we opened with," Schmidtke said. "I didn't want to be one of those stores that people thought, 'she should have closed a few years earlier.' "

Washington residents are smarter, its aerospace taxes are lower, its unemployment fund more stable, its aircraft industry infrastructure is more extensive, its workforce more experienced and its quality of life superior.

So why would Boeing consider opening a second 787 Dreamliner assembly line in South Carolina or any other state?

That's the question Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire asks in a new report aimed at persuading Boeing to open that second Dreamliner assembly line here.

Gregoire presented that report recently to Jim Albaugh, the new head of the company's Commercial Airplanes Group. She released it to the public today.

Washington provides Boeing with the best location for the second line. Washington is the highest quality location Boeing could possibly identify for additional 787 production," said Gregoire in an introduction to the new report.

While the report enumerates Washington's supposed advantages, it mentions no new incentives to turn Boeing's head.

Boeing said it appreciated the compilation of the state's advantages, the company believes unemployment and workers' compensation taxes are too high.

"While Washington state has made progress, there is still work to do to deal with the high costs of doing business," Boeing spokesman Bernard Choi told the Associated Press.

Washington Sen. Minority Leader Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, concurred that more needs to be done.

“While this report is beautiful and glossy and filled with rankings, is there really any substance here that Boeing hasn’t already considered? I want the company to stay in Washington as much as everyone else, but it’s time to stop resting on rankings and look at where we really are on the ground," he said in a news release.

Hewitt said the Legislature needs to consider Workers Compensation reform to cut workers compensation taxes that are due to rise this year.

Boeing received huge tax breaks when it searched for the site for the first 787 assembly line six years ago. Washington produced a $3 billion package of tax cuts and infrastructure and education enhancements to lure the assembly line to Everett.

But Boeing has already dropped strong hints that the second assembly line could be located elsewhere than Everett.

The company has applied for building permits in Charleston, S.C., where it recently purchased a plant from Vought Aerospace Industries that builds major sections of the 787 fuselage. The company says those building permit applications aren't indicative of the company making up its mind. It just wants to be ready to build a new plant if the decision favors South Carolina.

And Boeing executives have said that unless they get some assurance of labor peace here, they may just open that other assembly line in another state. Boeing suffered a two-month Machinists Union strike that shut down production of all of its commercial airplane lines here.

The report notes that the subject of labor peace is the subject of negotiations between Boeing and its unions.

Those unions have been talking with Boeing about how to ensure better relations.

But beyond labor issues, Gregoire's report enumerates several reasons why Washington outshines its rival states, though it leaves the question of labor costs and labor peace as a brief item in the report.

The report contends:

* Washington has a superior business climate.
In ratings by half-a-dozen independent sources, the Evergreen State earns higher marks consistently than rival states.
The Kauffman New Economy Index, which amalgamates 29 different indicators, Washington is ranked second to South Carolina's 34th.

Forbes Magazine also rates Washington fourth in business climate compared with 25th for South Carolina fifth for North Carolina and eighth for Texas.

* Washington has lower taxes for an aircraft assembly plant than any of the other states under consideration.
Total yearly taxes a new plant would be $11 million in Moses Lake, an alternative site for the plant, $11.3 million in Everett and $11.8 million in Charleston.

Washington real and personal property taxes are lower in Everett than in potential plant locations in North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Kansas, the report claims.

Washington's sales taxes on construction are higher than those in competing states, but the state charges no sales taxes on machinery and equipment or components, the report notes.

* The state's unemployment insurance fund is healthy while rival states' funds are insolvent.

Washington unemployment insurance rates may be higher than other states, the result is the most financially healthy fund among the competing states. Both North and South Carolina funds are insolvent and borrowing money from the federal government. Texas' fund could be broke in two to three months. Rival states' unemployment rates are likely to rise to meet their obligations.

* Washington has the world's largest cluster of aerospace companies and workers. Other states' resources are small compared with Washington's.

n Boeing can take advantage of the experience Everett workers and suppliers have gained already putting the first 787s together. No other state's workforce has that experience.

* The state has improved its highway and mass transit infrastructure greatly since the 2003 competition, and more improvements are being built.

* Washington students consistently outperform students in other states on college readiness evaluation tests.
Average ACT scores for Washington are 22.8 compared with South Carolina's 19.8. Scholastic Aptitude Tests give Washington students a similar edge. Washington students average 531 scores on SAT math tests versus 496 in South Carolina and 506 in Texas.

* The state's quality of life rankings surpass South Carolina's. In the 2008 CNBC Top States for Business ranking, Washington rateds ninth place. South Carolina was 39th. The 2009 Most Livable States Award rated Washington 18th versus South Carolina's 49th.

In a move to take advantage of the surge in post-holidays traffic, United and American airlines are adding a $10 surcharge to tickets on three of the busiest travel days of the year.

The extra fares apply to travel on Jan. 2 and 3 and on Nov. 29, the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

Higher fares typically apply to the busiest days during the holidays, but this is the first time that domestic carriers have imposed a specific holiday surcharge on tickets.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving is typically the busiest or second busiest on the airline calendar. The post-New Years dates are among the busiest of the year.

Jim Donald, former Starbucks president, has been named president and chief executive officer at Northwest grocery chain Haggen Inc.

Haggen owns 33 TOP Food & Drug and Haggen Food & Pharmacy stores. The chain is headquaretered in Bellingham.

Before joining Starbucks, Donald served as president and CEO of Pathmark stores, a 143-store regional supermarket chain on the East Coast. He was also president of Safeway's Eastern Division and as vice president of food merchandising at Wal-Mart Stores.

Donald, who grew Starbucks to more than 15,000 stores in 43 countries, left his job when the coffee chain rain into difficulties in 2008. Starbucks, now under the leadership of Howard Schultz radically downsized itself and cut costs to cope with the recession.

The city of Tacoma lost the Luzon building this past weekend. That's gotten us thinking about other historic buildings in the area.

We want to know what buildings you consider to be historic gems, what are your favorites and why?

Here are two early favorites, the old Elks Temple and Old City Hall.

The Tacoma office of the attorney general's office is moving from downtown to the Brewery District.

The state's General Administration department announced Friday that MJR Development, a Kirkland-based firm, was the successful bidder on 36,000 square feet of office space sought by the Tacoma office.

Currently they occupy six floors in the Washington Building at 1019 Pacific Ave, where their lease is up in June. They'll move to the Jet building at 2101 Jefferson Ave. on Dec. 10, 2010, said Cheral Jones of the General Administration department.

David Morton, property manager for the Washington Building, couldn't be reached for comment Friday.

According to the Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer's Web site, the property at 2101 Jefferson Ave. was built in 1919 and is a storage warehouse owned by glass artist Dale Chihuly. It's on the corner of Jefferson Avenue and 21st Street, which leads to an entrance to Interstate 705 just a few blocks down.

It's unclear if MJR Development has bought the building from Chihuly. Mark Lahaie, the contact for MJR listed on its bid to the state, could not be reached for comment Friday.

According to MJR's bid, the building will be renovated inside to Class A office space with LEED environmental certification while maintaining its distinctive brick structure outside.

=> Read more!

The Luzon building’s impending demolition – now scheduled for Saturday – has us thinking about other historic buildings in the area. The News Tribune wants to know what buildings you consider to be historic gems, what are your favorites and why?

Reply to this post or send an e-mail to Kelly.kearsley@thenewstribune.com.

By KATHLEEN COOPER

The demolition of the Luzon is on track for 7 a.m. tomorrow after representatives of a local developer failed to convince city officials that they could quickly remove the risk of its collapse.

Stuart Young of the architecture firm BCRA presented information from a Seattle-based engineer that the building was not in imminent danger of collapse and could be shored up within 4-6 weeks, then rehabilitated at some point.

After a 50-minute meeting at the Municipal Building, city manager Eric Anderson was unconvinced that that would mitigate the danger.

"That's if everything works out all right, but if it doesn't work out all right, someone could get killed," he told the group. "Charlie (Solverson, city building manager,) has indicated his opinion has not changed. We have to go forward. I don't see an alternative. I'm not prepared to risk public safety. It's regrettable."

Present at the meeting were Anderson, Solverson, Young, and historic preservation consultant Michael Sullivan.

During the discussion, Anderson expressed frustration about the history of the building.

"I wish there were representatives of two to three other people here," he said."One would be those who have owned it for years and didn't do a ... thing."

Young said he had a letter from the Gintz Group, agreeing to deed the building to the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation. He also said he had a letter from Terry Lundeen, a principal at Coughlin Porter Lundeen in Seattle.

=> Read more!

Natural gas rates for Puget Sound Energy customers are going down for the second time this year, according to a news release from the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission.

The commission today approved PSE's request to lower natural gas rates by 16 percent due to the decline in the wholesale cost of fuel. The average customer will save about $14.88 per month -- bringing the average bill to $78.30 -- beginning Oct. 1.

PSE has 145,000 customers in Pierce County and 46,000 in Thurston County.

“Natural gas customers will soon begin to crank up the heat in response to cooler temperatures, I am pleased that they can expect noticeably lower heating bills this winter,” said UTC Commissioner Patrick Oshie.

This is the second price reduction of natural gas rates this year. The UTC approved in June a decrease of 1.7 percent or $1.62 per month for residential customers.

PSE also requested the UTC approve two rate adjustments for electricity service that will result in customers seeing a slight increase on their electric bills.

The news release noted that the commission's decisions today is separate from a request filed by PSE in May seeking a 2.5 percent in natural gas rates and 7.4 percent increase in electric rates. The UTC will issue a decision on that request by next March.

Natural gas companies are required to adjust rates periodically to reflect the changes in wholesale prices. Bellevue-based Puget Sound Energy serves more than 1 million electric customers and nearly 750,000 natural gas customers in 11 Washington counties.

Could Boeing fly its two newest airliners for the first time on the same day later this fall?

Boeing says that it's now technically possible that its new 747-8 and its 787 Dreamliner could take to the air for the first time within a short time of each other.

Boeing has created separate flight-testing operations for each plane, so the first flight of one of the aircraft won't be borrowing equipment or personnel from the other's flight test operation.

The 787's first flight is now more than two years behind schedule because of technical, production and labor problems. The 747-8's first flight is about six months behind in part because Boeing diverted some of its engineering resources to work on the 787.

Both planes are now set to take their first flights in late November or early November Boeing workers are now reinforcing the wing-body joints on the 787 after static testing discovered a weakness in that area.

The 747-8 is the latest version of the venerable 747. It features a new wing, new generation engines, an updated cockpit and a fuselage stretch. The 787 is a new aircraft made mostly of composites instead of metal. It promises 20 percent fuel savings over current aircraft its size.

Sea-Tac-based Alaska Airlines earned $11.6 million in new revenues from first checked bag fees in July and August, the airline said in legal filings this week.

The airline, which at first had hesitated to follow the crowd of airlines imposing fees for the first checked bag, began imposing a $15 fee beginning July 7.

The airline said it remains on target to see its revenues increased about $70 million annually because of the new bag fees.

Among major U.S. airlines, only Southwest now doesn't charge fees for checked baggage. Other major airlines including United, American and USAirways have raised first checked bag fees to $20.

Alaska Airlines launched non-stop daily service from Sea-Tac Airport to Houston today.

Alaska will compete with Continental Airlines on the non-stop route. Continental, headquartered in Houston, has its biggest hub at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

Alaska is offering introductory one-way fares starting at $99 on the route. The tickets must be purchased by next Wednesday.

The once-daily flight will leave Sea-Tac at 9 a.m. and arrive in Houston at 3:20 p.m. The return flight will leave Houston at 4:30 p.m. and arrive back at Sea-Tac at 7:05 p.m.

The new city pair is part of an Alaska expansion to new markets. The airline started service to Austin, Texas on August 3. It will begin service to Atlanta from Sea-Tac on Oct. 23.

So you think airplane seating is tight now. You don't want to know just how much tighter those accommodations could become if a British design firm's proposal is implemented.

Design Q has proposed commuter-style seating with flip-down backless seats facing one another across narrow aisles as a way to fitting more passengers into short-haul planes.

The firm told London's Telegraph that the new seating plan could translate to 50 percent more passengers being carried on commuter flights.

The seating plan calls for flat, almost unpadded seats that flip down from the aircraft sidewalls. Passengers with seats near the plane's fuselage would face inward face-to-face with passengers who flip down seats in the center of the plane.

The two aisles would be too narrow with passengers seated to accommodate a beverage cart.

Design Q said the seats would save fuel-consuming weight and expense and allow passengers to exit more quickly because they would fold up.

The commuter-style seating isn't the only seating scheme rolled out this year to cut airlines costs. Irish discount carrier Ryanair reportedly considered having passengers stand for the duration of their flights held in place by lightweight framework.

Here's a drawing of Design Q's proposal:

Colliers released its third quarter office and industrial real estate updates today.

Pierce County's industrial vacancy rate was down slightly to 8.7 percent from 9 percent a year -- with the county remaining the only market in the area to post a positive net absorption rate.

The latter means that more people have moved into industrial space than moved out, according to an analyst from Colliers.

Industrial real estate high points for the third quarter included the opening of a new Whirlpool distribution center in Frederickson, and Green Mountain Coffee's expansion in Sumner.

The Colliers report states that industrial construction has ground to a halt and the need for spec construction (projects built without any tenants)has diminished.

For example, two "mega warehouses" in the Port of Tacoma area are need of tenants with nearly 1,000,000 square feet of space on the market.

Pierce County's office real estate vacancy rate increased to 12.1 percent from 11 percent a year ago and bumped up slightly from the previous quarter.

The area still posted a positive absorption of space over the quarter and year, "showing that despite the national recession, office users are still in the market," the report states.

The biggest news for this market is this month's announcement that Russell Investments plans to leave Tacoma by 2010. That move will open up 224,000 square feet of Class A (the highest quality) office space in downtown.

A Tacoma contractor who worked desperately for the last three weeks to save downtown Tacoma's historic Luzon Building from the wrecking ball today gave up his fight.

Serpanok Construction Co. owner Igor Kunitsa notified the City of Tacoma at noon today that he was withdrawing his proposal to save the building from demolition.

Robert Haley, Kunitsa's partner in the rescue effort, said the complications involved in the rescue plan were just too great to overcome in a short time.

Demolition contractor Wm. Dickson Co. is scheduled to begin staging at the building at South 13th Street and Pacific Avenue Wednesday. Dickson's crew will begin tearing down the six-story brick building Saturday.

Dickson was hired by the city to raze the structure after earlier rescue schemes proved undoable.

The building is in danger of collapsing without any human assist. The structure's north wall is leaning five inches toward South 13th Street and its west wall is bulging out toward Commerce Street.

The city three weeks ago ordered 13th Street blocked off and one lane of Pacific Avenue near the building barricaded. Last week, the city also roped off a portion of Commerce Street to protect passersby.

Haley said the city had worked diligently with him and Kunitsa to find a solution that would allow them to rehabilitate the structure, but in the end the risks were too great.

"Time has just run out," said Haley. "The city really stepped up to the plate, but there were just too much to be accomplished in a short time."

“I am not at all happy about this building coming down,” Tacoma City Manager Eric Anderson told the City Council at a noon study session. “It’s a shame that its come to this, but it didn’t come to this in the last three or four weeks. It came to this over the last 15 to 20 years.”

Kunitsa would have had to buy the building from its present owners, the Gintz Group, buy an adjacent strip of land from a California developer, sign loan and development agreements with the city and mobilize its own crews to begin shoring up the building.

Haley said he and Kunitsa feared that Dickson would charge the city for mobilization costs and for breaking the demolition contract and that those costs eventually would come back to haunt Kunitsa.

The city says it will charge the estimated $600,000 demolition costs to the building owner. The city, however, will likely lose money on the demolition because the property is valued on the tax rolls at $300,000 and several liens have already been placed on the structure.

The 119-year-old building is one of two remaining West Coast buildings designed by famed Chicago architect Daniel Burnham and John Root considered by many to be among the fathers of the modern-day skyscraper.

Workers' compensation premiums will increase by 7.6 percent next year, the state Department of Labor and Industries announced today.

While the increase was less than the 15-to-20 percent increase L&I had predicted, small businesses say they're not happy with the increase.

The National Federal of Independent Business, meeting this week in Walla Walla, called the change a "whopping tax increase."

"It's almost immoral. I don't hear them cutting anything. Maybe they're not filling vacancies, but I don't see them cutting anything," said Chuck Mott, owner of Innovac of Edmonds. "This is another additional cost coming at a time when we've already lost a great deal of money," he said.

L&I Director Judy Schurke said the increase was driven by factors out of the department's control: reduced investment returns, less income because of reduced workforce hours and fewer jobs to which injured workers can return.

Health care inflation of 8.5 percent also played a role in forcing the rates upward, she said.

The rates will increase on average by about four cents an hour bringing in $120 million more to the fund annually.

Workers compensation collect insurance premiums to pay workers' medical costs and replacement wages for job-related injuries.

Small business owners said they're already suffering from reduced demands and lower sales.

"Every time L&I raises our taxes, it affects my ability as a small businss employer to increase wages and benefits and threatens job security,' said Scottie Marabel, owner of Bellevue's Pinnacle Marketing Inc.

FedEx Express is celebrating the delivery of its first Boeing 777 Freighter this week.

The Everett-built freighter is the first 777 Freighter delivered to a U.S.-based freighter carrier.

The FedEx 777 is the ninth 777 Freighter to be built by Boeing. The 777's longer range will allow FedEx to cut from one to three hours from its schedule from its Memphis hub to Asia.

That shorter trip time will translate to later deadlines for shippers sending packages to Asia.

The 777 Freighter can fly 6,675 miles non-stop versus 3,890 miles for the carrier's MD-11 aircraft. The 777 can carry 37,000 pounds more freight than the MD-11 while using 18 percent less fuel.

Customers have ordered 71 777 Freighters from Boeing.

The Port of Seattle will reopen Sea-Tac Airport's longest runway at a minute after midnight Sunday morning, marking an end to a six-month construction closure.

The 11,901-foot runway, the easternmost of the airport's three runways, was demolished and completely rebuilt during the closure.

The runway, the first part of which was built when the airport opened in 1944, was last overlaid with asphalt in 1992 and was overdue for reconstruction.

The port delayed rebuilding the runway until its $1.1 billion third runway, which opened last fall, was up and running well.

The longest runway was rebuilt with a 12-inch crushed rock base overlaid with four inches of asphalt which was covered with 20 inches of new concrete.

The old concrete from the original runway was crushed and recycled in the base, and the asphalt overlays from the old strip have been stockpiled for recycling with fresh asphalt for other projects.

Qantas Airways is celebrating the delivery this week of its 75th Boeing 737 with ceremonies in Australia and New Zealand.

The 737-800 will be among several new 737s that Qantas will use on its international service between Australia and New Zealand across the Tasman Sea.

The plane was named in honor of Jean Batten, a New Zealand aviator who set many records in the '30s.

The State of Alaska and the cruise ship industry are arming themselves for a court battle over that state's $50-a-passenger cruise ship tax.

The fight could have an effect in the Puget Sound area where many of those cruise ship begin their summertime Alaska voyages. Cruise ship companies say that if they're able to convince the courts to abolish the tax, more consumers will cruise to Alaska.

The Alaska Cruise Association, representing nine major cruise lines, filed suit in Anchorage federal district court last week claiming the voter-passed tax violates constitutional prohibitions against individual states from charging taxes that raise funds used for non-cruise related expenses and improvements.

Alaska Attorney General Dan Sullivan told the Juneau Empire that his office will "vigorously defend" the tax passed by voters in 2006.

The cruise industry is challenge $46 of the $50 tax. Four dollars of that tax is used to monitor pollution in state waters. The cruise lines are not challenging that expenditure.

The cruise industry says funds raised by the tax were used for many projects not directly connected with the cruise industry such as zoo and train station improvements.

Work begins Wednesday on Stadium Thriftway's expansion, owner Mike Hargreaves said today.

"Everybody's in moving mode," he said, describing how the adjacent auto body shop is moving most of its operation across Division Avenue.

Hargreaves has said he's investing between $1 million and $2 million into the expansion of his store at 618 N. First St., sandwiched between Wright Park and Stadium High School. The store will go from 15,000 square feet to more than 21,000 square feet.

Hargreaves initially believed construction would begin Sept. 1, but getting all the ducks in a row - the lease, a Small Business Administration loan and permitting - proved to take a little longer.

He has a meeting today for the final building permit from the city. The work that starts on Wednesday is electrical, he said.

"You really won't see a lot for the first week or two," Hargreaves said.

The first section of the new store is schedule to open right before Thanksgiving, he said. It'll have the new meat, produce, wine and frozen food departments. The construction is planned so customers can shop without trouble.

"When we move some of our commodities into the new section, that frees up space for the next phase," Hargreaves said. "Everywhere we're working we'll be out of the customer's way."

Stadium Thriftway plans a construction celebration for Friday from noon-7 p.m., where customers can see the expansion plans.

Construction crews will be painting identifying numbers at the end of Sea-Tac Airport's longest runway this morning in preparation for its reopening.

The 11,901-foot runway was shut down last spring for its first complete rebuilding since it opened in 1944.

Construction crews demolished the existing runway and replaced it with 20 inches of new concrete with updated runway lighting and modified taxiways.

The runway's temporary closure was made possible by the opening last fall of the airport's new third runway. That runway, the westernmost of the airport's runways, is 8,500 feet long. It cost $1.1 billion.

Crews will paint 16L on the main runway's north end and 34R on the south end in 60-foot-high numerals. The numbers are the compass headings of the runway, 160 degrees and 340 degrees. The letters stand for left and right.

The airport has three runways with the same compass headings that are designated, right, center and left.

The first planes are expected to land on the new, old strip before the month's end.

Some five dozen vintage aircraft will be on public display next weekend at Everett's Paine Field.

The exhibit, sponsored by the Historic Flight Foundation, will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. Access to the exhibit will be through the Future of Flight Aviation Center, 8415 Paine Field Blvd.

Vintage aircraft will do flybys and demonstrations and will be available for inspection on the ground. Pilots and restoration mechanics will be available to talk with exhibit attendees.

Cost is $9 for adults, $4 for children and $7.50 for Boeing employees with identification. Children under six are free.

More information is available at the Vintage Aircraft Weekend page on Facebook (search Vintage Aircraft Weekend).

Sea-Tac Airport, which has imposed standards on taxi drivers for years, now is doing the same for limo drivers serving the airport.

The airport now is requiring limo drivers serving the airport to pass a multi-part screening and training regime in order to serve the airport.

The program includes:

* Passing drug screening and criminal background checks
* Successful completion of a driver training course
* A basic health examination
* Service and transportation training

The airport says some 500 limousine services pick up arriving travelers at the airport. Drivers without the required For Hire or Chauffeur license will no longer be able to pick up Sea-Tac passengers.

That person at your door who says he’s from Comcast may not be from Comcast.

Click!, a rival South Sound cable-TV purveyor, is out today with a press release warning people that persons representing themselves as Comcast sales personnel are telling untruths about Click!

These claims, both false, are:

• “Comcast purchased Click! and you should switch to avoid the rush.” (In truth, the City of Tacoma owns Click! Network.)
• “Comcast provides Click! its programming and always has, so you don’t need the middle-man anymore.” (Actually, Click! purchases its programming from a national cable programming cooperative.)

“We’ve taken quite a few phone calls,” said Diane Lachel, Click! Network government and community relations manager, earlier this afternoon.

Over the past two to three weeks, she said, she has heard from more than a dozen Click! customers wondering about the door-to-door emissaries. She said she has physical descriptions of seven of them, and that she has contacted both Comcast and her franchise authority.

In the case of one purported Comcast salesman, Lachel said she had heard that the man had recently been let go by his employer.

Steve Kipp, Comcast spokesman, said Friday that any actual Comcast salesperson – whether employed by Comcast or by a contractor – should have multiple means of identification including branded identification and adequate paperwork from Comcast.

Should someone suspect that a salesperson is not truly employed by Comcast. Kipp suggested the resident should call 800-COMCAST.

“We will make sure we get that to our internal investigations team,” he said. “If they are saying those things, we would take action immediately.”

The convenient but hazardous A Street connection from Puyallup Avenue to Dock Street is now blocked with concrete barriers where its crosses the BNSF main line.

The barricades went up late this week as part of a deal between the railroad and the City of Tacoma. The railroad wanted the dangerous crossing eliminated. It traded the city use of its old Prairie Line right-of-way through the Warehouse-Union Station Historic District for the closure agreement.

The old rail line behind the University of Washington Tacoma campus once crossed Pacific Avenue near the Tacoma Art Museum to connect with the BNSF main line on the waterfront.

That crossing was eliminated several years ago when Sound Transit built its Link light rail line from Freighthouse Square to near Old City Hall. The Link line would have crossed the Prairie line causing complicated safety issues.

The city plans to make the old line into a pedestrian trail.

The A Street crossing was a problem for the railroad because a handful of busy tracks crossed the street. At times cars waited on the tracks before turning onto Dock Street. The A Street underpass of the Tacoma Spur also flooded during hard rains forcing the street's closure.

The city said the barriers are temporary until a more aesthetically pleasing barrier can be installed.

Access to the southern end of Dock Street will now be only at the D Street overpass and the south 15th Street Bridge

United Airlines, once one of Boeing's biggest customers, says it will make its last Boeing 737 flight Oct. 28.

United is retiring its 737 fleet in favor of Airbus A320s.

The last United 737, a -300 model, will fly from Washington, D.C. to Chicago, to Denver, to Los Angeles and then to San Francisco where it will be prepared for its retirement. The plane eventually will be placed in storage in the desert at an airport in Victorville, Calif.

United never bought Boeing's "Next Generation" models for its fleet, opting instead for Airbus planes.

United still flies Boeing 777s, 747s and 757s, although it is looking for a replacement for the aging 757s.

Tacoma gas prices appear to be settling in for the fall with prices hovering just below $3 a gallon.

Those prices have been moving within a fairly narrow range for more than a month in contrast to the roller coaster ride prices took for much of last year and earlier this year.

According to Tacomagasprices.com, the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular in Tacoma Friday was $2.929. That compares to 2.923 a week ago. and $2.847 a month ago.

In September 2008, the price of gas was in a free fall from a high of $4.35 a gallon in late July to $3.678 at this time last year.

The price fell to below $2.00 a gallon in mid-December before moving upward again over the next several months.

Several ARCO and Costcc stations are selling regular for $2.75 a gallon, considerably below the average price.

Experts expect gas prices may settle somewhat lower as demand drops as the weather worsens, but not as far as it did last year.

There can't be much joy in airline boardrooms these days as fall airfares roll out.

But if you still have a few bucks to spare, the bargains are –- to use the vernacular's most overused adjective –– amazing.

Consider these roundtrip fares: Sea-Tac to San Francisco, $99.20 including taxes. Sea-Tac to LA, $139.20 taxes included. Sea-Tac to New York, $219.00 with taxes.

Of course, these fares aren't available on every flight or every day.

The airlines certainly aren't making any money in this low season fare war.

At the $99 rate, they're getting a little more than six cents a mile on the LA and San Francisco flights and an incredible 3.8 cents per mile per person for the coast-to-coast trip.

At those rates, you could spend more on baggage fees than on your fare.

Taxes constitute a considerable proportion of the final bills. For instance, of the $99.20 you'll pay for a roundtrip fare to San Francisco, only $78.00 goes to the airline. Of the $139.20 fare to LA, only 118.00 ends up in the airlines' pockets.

She took the money, says the state Office of the Insurance Commissioner, but she did not place it with insurance companies. The policies she sold were not real.

That’s the accusation in a cease-and-desist order issued to one-time licensed insurance agent Brenda L. MacLaren-Beattie and The MacLaren Group of Des Moines.

She and her company (which bears no relation to the MacLaren Group of Canada and Great Britain) have been told to immediately cease and desist from:

• Transacting the unauthorized business of insurance in Washington;
• Acting or holding herself out to be a Washington insurance agent or broker;
• Trying to sell Washingtonians any product requiring an insurance license.

MacLaren-Beattie had an insurance agent’s license in Washington until March 12, the office said in the order – which was filed yesterday in Tumwater. She had been licensed in this state since Aug. 25, 1997, but the license had expired.

It will not be renewed due to MacLaren-Beattie’s admitted acceptance of premium payments without actually obtaining the insurance, the OIC said.

The Office of the Insurance Commissioner is investigating eight such complaints against MacLaren-Beattie. All are from dentists or oral surgeons who thought they had purchased business coverage (represented as coming from Mutual of Enumclaw or Berkshire Hathaway) from her.

The OIC served a search warrant Tuesday on MacLaren-Beattie’s office in Des Moines, and the investigation continues, according to a press release.

For a look at the cease and desist order and further details of the case, click here.

The Boeing Co. today reported it received orders for nine 737 jets in the last week.

Those orders bring Boeing's net total orders to 79 for the year. The company has received gross orders for 170 aircraft, but cancellations have reduced that to 79.

Airlines have canceled 73 orders for Boeing's oft-delayed 787 Dreamliner, six orders for its 777, three orders for its 767, one order for a 747. Six orders have been canceled for Boeing's popular 737.

Last week's orders were eight from the Indian Air Force for 737s and one 737 from an unidentified customer.

The Washington Attorney General's office has reached a settlement with a Seattle-based window installer that the attorney general says will protect consumers from deceptive sales practices.

The settlement, filed today in King County Superior Court, sets limits on marketing practices of Evans Glass.

The attorney general's office contended in its complaint against Evans that the company's sales people deceived consumers that they were getting bargain prices and that they were at their homes not to sell replacement windows but to perform an energy audit.

The attorney general's office contended that Evans sales representatives used high pressure sales tactics and remained in the consumers' homes for as long as four hours making their pitch.

The attorney general's office suspended $25,000 in fines against the company provided the company abides by the terms of the agreement.

Good news. Really. Prices are down. It’s costing less to live. Inflation is deflated.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is out this week with its latest two-month numbers. The All-Items Consumer Price Index for the Tacoma-Bremerton-Seattle area is down 0.1 percent as of August, and the index is down 0.3 percent from August 2008.

Worth noting in breakouts: Groceries are down 1.5 percent for the two months; housing is down 0.1 percent; furniture is down 1.6 percent; medical care is down 0.4 percent; and apparel is down 5.6 percent.

Alcoholic beverages are up 0.9 percent; gasoline is up a mere 0.3 percent; and recreation up 0.8 percent. Gasoline, by the way, is down is down 28.2 percent for the year.

Electricity is static.

The schedule for replacement for the big aerospace manufacturers' bread-and-butter aircraft, the Airbus A320 and the Boeing 737, keeps slipping.

The latest schedule pushback came today at an Airbus' aviation forecast conference when Airbus' chief salesman John Leahy told attendees the replacement for the twin-engine A320 won't debut until 2024.

Both Boeing and Airbus two years ago said they expected replacements for their best-selling aircraft might emerge as soon as 2015, but both manufacturers have slipped that date.

The 2024 date from Airbus is the latest date yet mentioned by either plane-maker.

Both companies have openly talked about providing interim updates of their aircraft with new engines, electronics and interiors as well as aerodynamic tweaks.

Creating a new aircraft from scratch could cost $12 billion to $15 billion, a factor that helps push the projects back particularly during a bad world economy.

Virgin Blue Holdings Ltd. is negotiating with Boeing Co. to purchase up to $4 billion worth of new aircraft, the Australian Financial Review reports.

The new aircraft would replace Boeing 737s that are going off lease with the Australian low-cost carrier.

The airline said it plans to buy between 35 and 50 new aircraft, presumably more 737s.

An order this year would be a shot in the arm for Boeing which is suffering from its poorest order year in decades because of the recession and weak air traffic.

Buying the aircraft now could be financially advantageous for Virgin Blue because Boeing may be willing to sell the Renton-built aircraft at bargain prices because of the slack demand.

SeaTac's Alaska Airlines says it is sponsoring five-time Olympic medalist Apolo Ohno in his quest for more medals at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

A Seattle-area native, Ohno also became a reality TV star with his winning performance on "Dancing with the Stars."

He has won 11 national and 18 world championship honors and five Olympic medals in his career.

Ohno's fans can follow his training and competition on his Web site, www.followapolo.com.

And, no, in case you were wondering, Alaska won't give its trademark native Alaskan featured on its aircraft tails a version of Ohno's "soul patch."

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. last week sent Tacoma-based Rainier Pacific Financial Group a “Supervisory Prompt Corrective Action Directive” making two demands.

Because the bank had earlier been declared “under-capitalized,” said the directive, and because an earlier capital restoration plan had been deemed unacceptable, and because “the Bank’s condition continues to deteriorate,” the agency demanded that the bank take one or both of two suggested actions within 60 days.

First, Rainier Pacific could sell enough voting shares or obligations so the bank would be adequately capitalized, and/or it could accept an offer to be acquired or to combine with another approved financial institution.

The directive also asked that the bank fill the currently vacant position of chief financial officer and that it take other steps to maintain viability.

“We’ve been endeavoring to recapitalize the bank, and we continue,” said President and CEO John Hall earlier this week.

He said Rainier Pacific has retained Keefe, Bruyette & Woods – the same independent investment firm that assisted with the bank’s initial public offering of 8.4 million shares in 2003 – to help manage the recapitalization.

“I don’t want to go so far as say surprised,” Hall said, of his reaction to the latest directive.

“We do not take it lightly,” he said. “We have to demonstrate progress to that directive.”

He acknowledged that “it’s difficult to raise capital” in the current economic climate, but offered assurances that during the 60-day deadline period “we’ll make as many contacts as possible.”

Rainier Pacific stock (ticker: RPFG) closed up 10 cents to $1.03 in Wednesday trading.

Here’s the latest on Tacoma’s favorite car museum.

The LeMay Automobile Museum held its first downtown auction last weekend – with items both from private parties and the museum collection – and from $2.5 million in total sales netted $1.1 million. Auction house Bonhams & Butterfield, a museum contributor, did not charge the museum a commission and agreed to split its fees on the sale of private vehicles.

Also within the last week, the LeMay Museum board of directors approved the hiring of a Seattle general contractor to build a facility on a site near the Tacoma Dome. Museum President and CEO David Madeira said early this week that the identity of the contractor and the cost of construction would be released after final negotiations are complete.

Also, the Tacoma City Council at its meeting this week heard Madeira speak on a previously announced Housing and Urban Development loan. No one beyond Madeira spoke to the measure during time set aside for comment on the measure.

Final action on the $3.5 million HUD loan and a $4.7 million New Markets Tax Credit Program deal are all that remain before Madeira is finally able to announce a groundbreaking, he said.

Which could come as early as November.

First Russell, now Blue Box Group. Or first The Northern Pacific, then Weyerhaeuser, then Russell, now Blue Box Group.

The Tacoma-based and -born Web hosting and specialty application firm has announced that it has left Tacoma in favor of Seattle.

All 11 staff members will relocate by the end of the year, according to CEO and owner Jesse Proudman, who grew up in Tacoma and attended the University of Puget Sound.

“It was a staffing decision. We’ve grown 100 percent a year for last three years, and we’ve had a very difficult time finding and attracting a high level of people to a Tacoma office,” Proudman said earlier today. “A Seattle office would have been much more attractive.”

The firm will move its office to a space in Seattle’s Pioneer Square.

“At the end of the day, I really love Tacoma as a town,” Proudman said. “I just would hope that there would be some shifts to draw some technology talent to Tacoma.”

Founded in 2003, “Blue Box Group provides managed Web hosting solutions. They approach Web hosting, virtual and dedicated servers as a partnership with their customers. Blue Box Group knows technology and scalable ruby on rails deployments,” according to a press release.

I spoke today with Barbara Thompson, senior vice president for corporate communication at First Citizens Bank of Raleigh, N.C.

That's the bank whose name you've been seeing on temporary signs placed over those of the former Venture Bank branches in the Puget Sound area.

Venture – troubled to the point of being insolvent – was overtaken by the state Department of Financial Institutions on Friday evening and sold immediately to First Citizens by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Thompson said the publicly traded First Citizens (Ticker: FCNCA) was "evaluating all options" concerning further expansion or disposition.

The bank "is talking to all current employees" at Venture about continued employment, she said.

First Citizens, she said, was committed to community involvement, and would remain so in Washington.

Although unknown to many local residents, the bank's name may well be familiar to people stationed at Fort Lewis, Thompson said, in that First Citizens has a presence at both Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune.

Of Western Washington, she said, "We're excited to be there."

For a broad look at First Citizens, click here for a story that appeared today in the business section of our sister paper, the News & Observor of Raleigh.

Decades of neglect and a sour economy today took their toll on one of downtown Tacoma's most historic buildings.

The City of Tacoma, declaring the six-story Luzon Building at South 13th Street and Pacific Avenue in imminent danger of collapse, today ordered its demolition.

Crews from the demolition contractor are expected to mobilize on the site by the middle of next week and demolish the structure the weekend of Sept. 26 and Sept. 27.

The order to raze the building, one of only two structures remaining on the West Coast designed by famed Chicago architects Daniel Burnham and John Root, came after months of negotiations among the city, the building's present owners, an adjacent landowner and a prospective rescuer led to naught.

The three private parties, said Tacoma City Manager Eric Anderson, couldn't reach agreement on a deal to save the structure.

Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma called the building's demolition tragic but necessary.

The City Council learned of the building's imminent demise today at an early afternoon study session.

=> Read more!

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz Monday reaped a paper profit about $14 million on stock options he exercised in the coffee retailer.

Schultz reportedly purchased 982,792 shares of Starbucks stock using options that set his price for the shares at $5.81 a share. Starbucks closing price Monday for shares on the open market was $20.08 million.

Schultz returned to Starbucks in 2007 after the retailer began seeing its profits erode as a result of overexpansion and a declining economy.

Under his leadership, the company has closed more than 800 underperforming stores and trimmed its costs and staff.

Outmaneuvered by a consortium of Airbus parent EADS and Northrop Grumman in the last Air Force airborne tanker competition, Boeing is leaving nothing to chance this time around.

The company said this week it will offer tanker versions of both the 767 and the larger 777 in the renewed competition this fall.

One reason for the choice: the Air Force picked the militarized version of Airbus' A330 last time because it carried more fuel and more passengers. That choice was nullified because the Government Accountability Office found irregularities in the competitive process.

The 777 is larger than the A330. The 767 is maller.
The 777 tanker could carry 300,000 pounds of fuel and up to 320 passengers. The 767's fuel capacity is 202,000 pounds. The twin-jet could carry up to 190 passengers.

Washington’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased to 9.2 percent in August, up from 8.9 percent in July, according to new figures released by the state Employment Security Department today.

The state lost an estimated 8,000 jobs in August, after gaining 11,800 in July.

Industries with the largest declines were in professional and business services, which cut 2,500 jobs; retail trade, down 2,400; and education and health services, which lost 1,800 jobs. Industries with the most job growth included government, with 1,800 new jobs; leisure and hospitality, which added 800; transportation, warehousing and utilities, up 700; and construction, up 200.

“The recession may be coming to an end, but thousands of our unemployed workers will run out of unemployment benefits before the job market begins to recover,” said Employment Security Commissioner Karen Lee. “We need Congress to authorize another extension for unemployment benefits.”

Lee also urged unemployed workers to inquire about assessment and training opportunities that are available through their local WorkSource career centers.

“Sometimes the key to getting a job is improving your work skills, and we can help with that,” said Lee. “We’re here to help people turn hard times into better times.”

Sea-Tac Airport travelers who want to make their trip through customs quickly have a new programs to speed the process.

The new program from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol is called Global Entry.

Under that program, travelers who agree to be pre-screened and who pay a fee, enter an alternate processing line. They insert their machine-readable passport into a readers, provide their digital fingerprints, answer simply question on an electronic kiosk and then present a transaction receipt to a Customs agent.

Sea-Tac is one of 13 airports added to the Global Entry recently.

The new program reportedly reduces waiting time by 70 percent, the Customs Service said.

Smoking will no longer be allowed on the airport drives outside Sea-Tac Airport's terminal building, the airport announced this week.

The airport is moving its smoking area to two areas outside the north and south ends of the terminal structure.

Both area are on the lower, baggage claim level of the airport. On the south end of the terminal, the smoking area is now located at the far south end of the ground transportation lot. On the north, the smoking area is located north of door 26 across a small parking lot adjacent to the stairs to the cruise tent lot.

Washington law bans smoking within 25 feet of a work area. The King County Health Department recently said the airport drives were work areas.

SeaTac's Alaska and Horizon airlines are offering a new take on airline ticket pricing with "mystery discounts" today, Tuesday and Wednesday.

The daily discount tickets are available only for 24 hours from 12:01 a.m. to midnight the day they're announced.

Today, the airlines is offering 30-percent-off discount codes for flights to Austin, Texas from Seattle and to Maui and Kona in Hawaii from Oakland.

New discounts for Tuesday will be revealed tonight as the Austin and Hawaiian discounts expire. The airfares available through those "mystery prices" are available for a range of dates detailed in the fine print of the offers.

Check out the discount fares are the airlines' Web site, www.alaskaair.com

Boeing has delivered the second of two C-17 military transport aircraft to the Qatar Emiri Air Force.

The transport aircraft was built in Boeing's former McDonnell Douglas plant in Long Beach, Calif.

The C-17 is a four-engine transport that also equips the airlift operation at Pierce County's McChord Air Force Base.

The Middle Eastern country's air force has an option to buy two additional C-17s from Boeing.

The sale of the transport to Qatar is part of Boeing's effort to keep the C-17 production line rolling as orders from the U.S. Air Force wind down. Boeing has sold C-17s to Britain's Royal Air Force and to a consortium of European nations which will share the aircraft.

The Washington Department of Financial Institutions closed DuPont-based Venture Bank at 6 p.m. today and immediately named the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as receiver.

The FDIC immediately entered into a prearranged purchase and assumption agreement with First-Citizens Bank and Trust Co. of Raleigh, N.C., which has assumed all deposits and assets – but for some brokered deposits – of Venture Bank.

Representatives of the FDIC entered all Venture branches, and the DuPont headquarters, after 6 p.m., and will remain for several hours reviewing figures, counting cash and dealing with other details.

All branches that were regularly scheduled to open on Saturday will do so, and the state DFI has assured all customers that their deposits and accounts are safe.

“Throughout the weekend and transition, Venture Bank customers can access their funds by writing checks or using ATM or debit cards,” the agency said in a press release this afternoon. “Checks will continue to be processed. Loan customers should continue to make their payments as usual. Online services will remain available.”

The demise of Venture was caused "large loan and investment losses” that depleted the bank's capital, the release said.

The bank had been under increased regulatory scrutiny for several months. Venture officials have said failed investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac led in great part to the problems, as had loans gone sour in the recession. Recent attempts to raise capital have been unsuccessful.

Unlike other takeover transactions in the state that have seen the FDIC bear much of the financial responsibility for losses, the transaction with First-Citizens will be a “whole bank transaction,” said DFI’s head of banks Brad Williamson Friday afternoon.

“Up to now, no acquiring institutions have wanted to take on the problem loans. For the first time, a bank has taken on the loans as well. There is loss-exposure here. I hope that this is a precursor of confidence in the banking community.”

Williamson said two Northwest banks had also made bids for Venture, although he would not name them. Other banks from outside the area may also have bid.

“The fact that it’s a bank that isn't in the same market area – I think does preserve more jobs. From a local employment perspective, it is good news for the employees of the banks and the communities.”

Clarifying the process of the takeover, Williamson said, “It is not widely understood in most press reporting that the board of directors of the bank has consented, and has basically given us the bank. We have received a bank from the board of directors.”

Venture, he said, “is insolvent. They have recently re-filed regulatory reports, and those reports show them to be insolvent – with negative capital.”

Some 50 employees of the FDIC were part of the takeover, he said.

First-Citizen Bank & Trust, as it is known in the DFI release, is based in North Carolina and has a small presence in Washington with its subsidiary, IronStone Bank.

According to the First-Citizen Web site, “we continue to expand into new markets.”

It continues, “First Citizens Bank has grown to serve customers in more than 200 cities and towns in North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Maryland and California. Our sister subsidiary, IronStone Bank, reaches into Georgia and Florida and into Texas, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, California, Oregon and Washington...Yet even with this expansion, we still maintain a tradition of sound financial principles that began in Eastern North Carolina.”

All Venture branches would be re-branded, Williamson said.

Venture Bank customers seeking more information about the closure should visit www.dfi.wa.gov/banks/venture.htm or www.fdic.gov or www.firstcitizens.com or they may call First-Citizens toll-free at 800-586-2351 between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m.

The city of Tacoma gave the owners of the historic and dilapidated Luzon a deadline of today to come up with a plan to shore it up.

"They sent a certified letter, first class, on Sept. 4, that was Friday, advising us of noncompliance and to please advise by today, over a three day weekend," Gintz said Tuesday. "We're still dealing with the prospective buyers, hoping to get something there. The ball's in their court."

Gintz said he hasn't talked to the city today, and he would not comment on the status of negotiations between his broker and representatives for Igor Kunitsa and his partner, Robert Haley.

"It's all very delicate right now and we hope to have something put together by Friday," Gintz said.

When asked whether The Gintz Group planned to take any action as required by the city, he said: "The city's going to do what it's going to do, the prospective buyer's going to do what they have to do, and we're just twisting in the wind."

I've made calls to the city and to Mr. Haley to get their comments. As soon as I hear back, I'll post an update.

UPDATE: As of 4:30 p.m., neither Mr. Haley nor officials from the city's building division could be reached for comment.

Got an old refrigerator or freezer down in the basement or out in the garage? Something not-so energy efficient that you’ve been meaning to recycle?

Well, Tacoma Power has a deal for you. The agency will come and get the appliance (10 cubic feet or more, in working condition), plus pay you $30, plus enter you in contest for a basement, garage or kitchen reorganization.

I’ll repeat: They’ll take it away, pay you money, recycle the thing and enter you into the contest.

It’s all about energy. “Older models can use up to four times more energy than newer, more efficient models. Unplugging an old fridge or freezer can save people up to $140 in annual energy costs. There’s an environmental benefit,” says a release from Tacoma Power spokeswoman Chris Gleason.

Through the program, about 95 percent of each refrigerator or freezer is recycled, so it won’t end up in a landfill.

Department of Energy data show 12 to 14 percent of homes have two or more refrigerators and/or freezers, and half of the second refrigerators are more than 10 years old, according to Tacoma Power.

Tacoma Power customers can call 877-577-0510 or visit jacoinc.net to schedule a fridge or freezer pick-up date. Every customer who participates in the program will be automatically entered into the contest.

Contest rules and eligibility are available at KnowYourPower.com and by calling (253) 502-8377.

The program deadline is Nov. 6.

Airline passengers got to their destination on time a little more often this summer, says the Associated Press this morning.

The Transportation Department says 77.6 percent of airline flights arrived on time in July. That’s up from 75.7 percent during the same month last year – and it was an improvement over the 76.1 percent on-time rate in June.

Airlines have generally been flying less because of the recession, and that seems to be helping them get their remaining flights to their destinations on time.

Southwest Airlines had the top on-time arrival rating of the biggest carriers, followed by US Airways and United. American was last-place among the major carriers.

Seattle is the nation's 15th most-booked destination during the rest of 2009, a new survey by travel agency Travel Leaders reports.

Top destinations in the survey were Las Vegas, Orlando and New York City.

New York moved past two popular Hawaiian destinations, Honolulu and Maui, to take the third spot.

The two top international destinations were a Carribean cruise and Cancum, Mexico.

The roads will be less traveled, the airports and train stations less busy this Labor Day weekend, predicts AAA.

The travel planning company predicts traffic this weekend will fall 13.3 percent over last year.

AAA said it's figures show some 39.1 million Americans will travel farther than 50 miles from home during the coming holiday.

Blame, if you will, the relative lateness of the Labor Day holiday itself. With many youngsters already in school this year, AAA says, fewer parents will stray far from home for the weekend.

The average household traveling will spend $968 and journey 645 miles during the weekend, the travel company predicted.

One sign that the auto industry is still alive and perhaps recovering came this week at Tacoma's Titus-Will Ford.

Ford was there with its rolling road show for its new Taurus, its 21st century effort to revive the nameplate that was once the nation's most popular.

The car that bears the Taurus name now bears little resemblance the rental car staple that the revolutionary Taurus had become in its waning days.

The new Taurus hopes to compete with and beat such domestic and foreign marque best-sellers as Chryler's 300, Toyota's Avalon, Audi's A6 and Lexus' GS 350.

Brad Hughes, Ford's Global Product Design controller, was among the team at Titus-Will for the local roll-out celebration.

Hughes, who like his company has weathered the storms that struck the auto industry in the last year, said he thinks cars like the new Taurus represent a reinvigorated Ford.

Ford was the only one of the Big Three domestic automakers that didn't enter bankruptcy.

The car itself is as much an electronics showpiece as an automotive one. It features a special key parents can give to their driving age kids that limits the car's top speed and audio volume.

The special key triggers a persistent seat belt reminder that chimes for six seconds at a time for five minutes. The key tells the car to alert the teen driver 75 miles before the gas is exhausted and prohibits disablement of the traction control.

Other electronic features include alerts for cross traffic when you're backing from a parking space, a blind spot alert, an adaptive cruise control and collision warning system.

The car itself, a muscular-looking design, in its top-of-the-line iteration, the SHO, can reach 60 mph in five seconds. Inside at speed, it's as silent as a refrigerator and as comfortable as the parlor at a men's club.

Not coincidentally, Ford announced today that Titus-Will had won the company's President's Award, an honor awarded to less than 10 percent of the 4,000 Ford dealers nationwide for superior service and customer relations.

Both Sea-Tac and Portland International Airport were among the top ten domestic airports ranked by on-time arrivals in August according to new figures released today.

At Sea-Tac, 85.16 percent of flights were on-time last month. At Portland, 86.49 percent arrived within 15 minutes of their schedule, the federal standard for on-time arrival.

Those performances ranked Portland fifth among the top 40 domestic airports and Sea-Tac seventh.

Lack of storms and adverse weather helped arrivals at both airports, said airline experts.

Oakland had the best on-time performance in the country according to flightstats.com while three New York airports, LaGuardia, Newark and JFK, and Philadelphia were at the button with on-time arrivals with less than 71 percent of the time.

Alaska Airlines' flights arrived on time more than 85 percent of the time in August, putting Alaska at the top of the list of major carriers in on-time performance.

New statistics from Portland's Flightstats.com
show Alaska with an 85.33 percent on-time record last month.

Alaska was followed on the list by Southwest with an 83.61 percent on-time performance. Northwest Airlines, now part of Delta, was at the bottom of the list with a 75.07 percent on-time arrival rate.

Among all domestic carriers including regional carriers, Alaska ranked sixth. Hawaiian Airlines topped that full list with a 94.35 percent on-time result. Alaska's sister regional carrier, Horizon Air, was third on the list with 88.25 percent of its August arrivals on time.

Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air are both part of Alaska Air Group whose headquarters is in SeaTac.

A new hotel for downtown Tacoma's Foss Waterway moved a step forward Wednesday night with the approval of an agreement with the Foss Waterway Development Authority.

That development agreement sets schedules and conditions for the construction of a new hotel and office complex on the Thea Foss Waterway's west side south of South 15th Street.

The board, which is charged with revitalization of the formerly industrial waterway as a people-friendly downtown asset, approved the new agreement unanimously.

The board's approval came despite concerns from former development authority board member Frank Jacobs. Jacobs said the conceptual plan for the complex doesn't meet city codes for view setbacks and other issues.

An environmental indemnification document also endorsed by the authority Wednesday allows Bellingham's Hollander Investments to also seek Tacoma City Council approval of the environmental agreement. Under that agreement, the city assumes responsibility for historic environmental issues that may surface in the future.

The site adjacent to Thea's Landing condominiums has already been cleaned up, but some pollution remains in the ground below the site.

Hollander would seal off that pollution with a concrete barrier below the new buildings.

Once the City Council approves, an action expected to happen at mid-month, Hollander will buy the site from Seattle hotelier Bob Thurston. Hollander expects to begin construction on the first of two hotels sometime later this fall.

That first hotel is expected to be a Marriott Residence Inn extended stay hotel. That hotel will occupy the south part of the site. A second hotel, likely a 128-room Hilton, will be built later on the site's north half with an office structure scheduled to link the two hotels.

Those buildings will be constructed when the market revives, said developer Mark Hollander.

In the meanwhile, Hollander will landscape the future second hotel site.

Seattle architect Dave Murphy, who designed the complex, assured Jacobs that the design meets all city codes. The building view setbacks prescribed at various heights by the code would apply if the building were being built to the property line, he said.

His design for the building is set back from the property line, he said, thus ensuring a proper view corridor from Dock Street to the waterway without any further building setbacks.

If Hollander, which owns downtown's Marriott Courtyard Hotel, carries through with its construction plans, the development authority will have finally fulfilled its long-held dream of getting a hotel for the Foss.

The authority has spent five years with two other developers trying to get a hotel built on the site, but a depressed economy scrubbed plans.

An hotel consultant hired by the authority has reviewed Hollander's finances. The Bellingham company has the financial muscle to build at least the first hotel, he told the authority. The complex is expected to cost $35 million to $40 million.

The authority has two more reviews of plans for the hotel scheduled as those plans are more fully developed.

A largely blank wall above the Hilton Hotel entrance under the first design is being revised, said Murphy, because of criticism from the authority's Urban Design Review Committee.

America works. And what better way to celebrate that than to declare a day in honor of those workers...

So it was that Congress established Labor Day in 1894 – a dozen years after the a parade held in New York to salute the American worker.

Today – 115 years after the federal legislation – America continues to recognize the contribution of people who work for a living.

Here’s a list of the latest numbers from data supplied by the U.S. Census Bureau.

155.1 million: People in the U.S. labor force as of May, 2009
77: Percent of workers in private industry who receive a paid vacation
28: Percent of workers 16 and older who work more than 40 hours a week
7.7 million: American workers who hold down more than one job
288,000: American workers who hold two full-time jobs
10.4 million: Self-employed workers in America
4: Median number of years workers have been with their current employer
9: Percent of workers have been with their current employer for 20 or more years
15.7 million: Americans who are members of labor unions
5.7 million: Number of Americans who work at home
$45,113: Annual median wage for male workers in America
$35,102: Annual median wage for female workers in America
587,000: Number of registered nurses (highest of all fields) who will be added to the workforce between 2006-2016
17 million: Number of American commuters who leave for work between midnight and 5:59 a.m.
76: Percent of American workers who work alone
25.3: Average time in minutes American commuters spend in their daily commute
3.4 million: Number of American workers who commute 90 minutes or more

Turkmenistan Airlines has ordered three new 737-700s from Boeing, the company said this week.

The value of the three-plane order is $192 million at list prices.

Turkmenistan Airlines' present fleet includes several Boeing aircraft, 717s, two generations of 737s, 757s and one 767.

Boeing Chairman Jim McNerney, speaking to a financial analysts' conference this week, raised the possibility that Boeing may re-engine its best-selling 737 jetliner.

McNerney said Boeing is studying the whether to put newer, more fuel-efficient engines on the twin jet as an interim update before Boeing develops a new small jetliner.

Boeing and its rival, Airbus, had originally planned to field new aircraft to replace their 737s and A320s sometime around 2015, but the two companies have found themselves too involved with new mid-sized jets.

Now, it appears the two companies are looking at producing a new jet about 2020.

Putting new engines on the 737 would raise its fuel efficiency substantially. Pratt & Whitney is developing a new geared turbine engine that Canadian airframer Bombardier is using on a new smaller jet.

General Electric likewise is putting research dollars into a new engine that promises fuel-saving advantages over the 737's present engine made by an alliance of General Electric and French engine-maker Snecma.

The Boeing Co. recorded orders for 11 aircraft in the week ending Tuesday, raising its total of new orders for the year to 161.

But subtracting cancellations, the company's backlog of orders has risen by only 70 aircraft in 2009.

Unidentified customers last week canceled orders for two 777s while ordering 11 new 737s.

With just 70 net orders this year, new aircraft orders this year are as low as they have been anytime in the last three decades are Boeing. The company has a backlog of some 3,500 aircraft, most of them ordered before the recession hit 18 months ago.

Construction of a 2,200-foot bridge over four sets of busy Tacoma Tideflats railroad tracks begins Tuesday.

The project, funded in large part by federal economic stimulus money, will allow both trains and trucks better access to Port of Tacoma terminals.

The tracks which the overpass will span serve the port's two main intermodal container yards.

Lincoln Avenue will be closed in two stages, the port said.

The first closure will happen Tuesday from Milwaukee Way to Thorne Road. About two weeks later, Lincoln will be closed from Marc Street to Thorne Road. Milwaukee Way and and the APM Road connector will continue to provide public access through the construction zone.

The project is scheduled for completion in May 2011.

Stimulus funds will pay $15.4 million of the $21.8 million cost of the project. Some 200 jobs are expected to be created during the duration of the construction.

For more information on the project and to view a map and construction schedules, see the port's Web site.

Your photographs of county hot spots could end up on a Web site and earn you some cash.

The Economic Development Board for Tacoma-Pierce County is looking for images of the business interests of the area for use on its new Web site, which will be launched in the fall.

The best entries will win $100, $200, and $300. Images should illustrate economic development, such as business activity, people at work, industrial operations, technology, infrastructure, educational endeavors and cultural icons.

To enter, send color photographs taken with a digital camera to info@edbtacomapierce.org with "Photo contest" in the subject line. The photos become the property of the EDB and may be used without attribution or payment.

The contest ends Sept. 30.

Tacoma-based Sound Credit Union announced today in a press release that the merger of MilePost Credit Union into Sound was completed on August 31.

“This merger allows new opportunities for growth and enhances the range of branch locations and services available to the members,” the release said.

Sound Credit Union now holds $477 million in assets and serves 47,000 members with a total of 12 branches located in Pierce, Thurston and King Counties – in downtown Tacoma, Auburn, East Tacoma, Federal Way, Gig Harbor, Key Center, Lakewood, Olympia, Parkland, Pacific Avenue, Puyallup and Westgate.

While Boeing fits reinforcements into the wings of its still-unflown 787 Dreamliner, the production crew at the other end of the company's Everett plant is moving forward quickly with Boeing's other new airliner.

Boeing said today four General Electric engines have now been installed on the wings of the 747-8 Freighter in preparation for the plane's first flight later this year.

The GEnx-2B engines are variations of the engines that will power the 787.

The 787 has yet to fly more than two years after its debut flight was originally scheduled.

The Dreamliner's first flight has endured five postponements, the latest was this summer after Boeing discovered the wing-body joint on the revolutionary plane didn't meet strength requirements. Modifications to that area are in process with a new first flight scheduled for late this year.

If the Dreamliner continues to dawdle through its development, and the 747-8 continues to move smoothly, that could mean the new 747 could take to the air before its smaller brother.

The 747-8 is the latest variant of the 747 which debuted in the late '60s. The new version includes new wings and engines, a fuselage stretch, a new cabin and new electronics. Boeing has orders for 78 of the cargo versions of the plane.

Southwest Airlines, adjusting its schedule to meet seasonal demand declines, will eliminate its daily non-stop flight from Sea-Tac to Kansas City and four other daily flights in January.

Southwest spokesman Brad Hawkins said Southwest will decrease its service by one flight a day between Sea-Tac and Denver, Las Vegas, Oakland and Phoenix, beginning Jan. 10. That will leave two daily flights to Denver, two to Las Vegas, six to Oakland and two to Phoenix.

The Kansas City flight will be restored in May when seasonal traffic picks up. The flights trimmed from the schedule could also be restored later in 2010, he said if demand freshens.

Southwest is cutting 42 daily flights from its schedule nationwide in January and adding 32 new flights for a net loss of 10 flights.

Southwest's January Sea-Tac flight schedule will be 31 daily flights. That number will rise to 32 in February when one Phoenix flight is restored.

Seattle's accustomed to making it to the top ranks of numerous lists for livability, business opportunity, education and the like, but one new list ranks Seattle out of the top echelon.

Forbes Magazine's list of the America's Most Stressful Cities, issued today, ranks Seattle in 11th place just behind San Jose, Calif. and Washington, D.C.

That same list puts Chicago as the nation's most stressful city followed by Los Angeles, New York, Cleveland and Providence.

The ranking was compiled using several factors: median home price drop, unemployment rate, cost of living, air quality, population density and sunny days per year.

The country's least stressful metropolis among the nation's 40 largest was Austin, Texas with San Antonio coming in 39th.

Raising Seattle's stress rating were two of the standards, sunny days, where Seattle was third worst behind Portland and Pittsburgh (Phoenix earned the best rating) and cost of living where it ranked ninth (Nashville had the lowest living costs).

Ford emerged the big winner in the "Cash for Clunkers" car buying frenzy last month with nationwide sales up 21 percent over August 2008, but the car maker's sales were even better in the Northwest.

New figures from Ford's Seattle region, which includes Washington and Oregon, show retail sales increased 39 percent over the same month last year.

Ford says those more robust sales were driven by purchases of Ford's most fuel efficient vehicles, its Focus, Fusion and Escape.

The manufacturer, the only one of the Big Three domestic automakers that escaped bankruptcy, posted positive sales numbers in July as well.

Want to know where to find a beer at the Fremont Oktoberfest? There is actually an iPhone app for that.

The annual festival launched a free iPhone application today that provides iPhone users with Oktoberfest maps, learn about beers and rate them, and track the music lineup.

"Gone are the days of paper programs as guests use their iPhones as a key to the Fremont Oktoberfest," reads a news release announced the launch of the application.

But what if -- like me -- you don't have an iPhone? (Gasp! It's true! I also text very slowly on my large and outdated cellular telephone that I got free with my Verizon plan.)

There's information about the festival at www.fremontoktoberfest.com. You can also download the iPhone app there.

A fantasy weapon that until now has existed only in comic books and sci-fi movies is moving toward reality.

Boeing Co. announced today it has successfully tested what it calls the "Advanced Tactical Laser"

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If you’re looking for money from a so-called payday lender, look out.

The State Department of Financial Institutions is warning consumers that some unlicensed lenders are offering services that are illegal in Washington.

The department offers a solution: Check the license. Verify.

“State law requires all payday lenders — including Internet payday lenders — offering services to Washington residents, including online payday lenders, to be licensed by DFI before doing business in our state. Some online payday lenders offer services that are not legal in Washington,” the department said today in a press release.

Potential customers can check licenses by checking here, or by going to the DFI site at www.dfi.wa.gov.

People considering taking out a payday loan should also be aware of current and coming law, the department said. Starting Jan. 1, 2010 new payday lending laws and regulations go into effect. Under the new laws:

• You may only borrow a total of $700 or 30% of your gross monthly income — whichever is LESS.
• Your information will be registered in a statewide database, ensuring that all payday lenders in Washington have your most up-to-date loan information.
• You may only take eight payday loans per 12-month period.
• If you unable to repay your loan on or before the day it is due, you need to notify your payday lender. Your lender is then required to offer to allow you to pay back your loan over a period of 90-180 days depending on the size of the loan. The installment plan will not incur additional fees.
• Lenders may not harass or intimidate you when collecting a loan. If you are harassed, contact the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions and file a complaint.

A company that left town a decade ago, Bruegger's, is now talking about reestablishing itself in the Puget Sound area with two dozen or so of its bakery cafes.

Chris Cheek, vice president of franchise development for the Burlington, Vt., company, was in town recently to scout out the prospects of re-entering the Northwest market.

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A new program called Global Entry allows pre-screened, pre-approved, registered international travelers to speed to through U.S. Customs at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

The system, called Global Entry, debuted today, according to a news release.

“Global Entry is a definite win-win for international travelers and for (Customs and Border Patrol),” said Michele James, director of the Seattle Field Office.

“It provides pre-approved travelers an expedited clearance process and allows our CBP officers the ability to focus on processing other arriving passengers,” he said.

Travelers can apply online to be pre-registered for the system.

Approved applicants present their machine-readable passport, submit their fingerprints for biometric verification, and make a declaration at a kiosk. They are then directed to baggage claim and the exit, unless chosen for further inspection.

Global Entry reduces the average wait times for CBP processing by 70 percent, according to the news release, with more than three-quarters of the travelers processed in under five minutes.

About 18,000 people have enrolled in Global Entry, which is operating at more than a dozen major airports around the country.

For more information, go here.

Comcast plans to begin notifying its Washington customers this week that they will see price increases in their October cable television bills averaging 2.7 percent.

Digital Starter, a package of channels taken by a majority of Comcast customers, will increase by $1.70 a month from $55.75 to $57.45.

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