Via The Wall Street Journal News Alerts:

Simon Property offered to buy General Growth Properties Inc. for about $10 billion, as the world’s largest shopping-mall operator seeks to absorb the No. 2 mall owner in the U.S. while General Growth grapples with its exit from bankruptcy court.

Although shopping-mall real estate investment trusts have been struggling with declines in consumer spending, Simon is viewed as one of the healthiest. Reporting better-than-expected profit for the fourth quarter last month, Simon was still hurt by write-downs and lower occupancy rates, but it predicted brighter days for 2010.

They just sold off some malls, but lately they’ve been buying more. Hmmm.

I think that this is the third or fourth year running that I’ve tried to get press credentials for the NFL Scouting Combine that is held here in Indianapolis every year.  And to keep  my 0-fer record in tact I received yet another rejection that goes like this:

We have received your request for media credentials to the 2010 NFL Combine. Unfortunately, due to tremendous demand, we are unable to accommodate your request.

Thank you for your interest in the NFL.

Corry Rush
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE

OK, fair enough. Surge Bucket Media is a small potatoes outlet that currently only publishes online via blogs & podcasts. But what gets me is the whole canned “due to tremendous demand” response that is sent out every year.

This isn’t the Super Bowl. This isn’t the Pro Bowl. This isn’t the NFL Draft. This isn’t a game. This isn’t even something related to a specific team. It’s the NFL Combine where they scout the potential incoming draft picks.

Now I know that there are quite a few people in town for it (just try to go to lunch around the stadium and you’ll see that). But go and take a look at the photos & video from previous Combine’s and you’ll see that there really aren’t that many people in the stands watching. Maybe they’re milling around the stadium or back in the media rooms, or at the food court at Circle Centre Mall, I don’t know, but I don’t believe for one minute that there’s “tremendous demand” if that’s derived at just by the number of good seats in the lower level of Lucas Oil Stadium. (BTW, Indy.com reports that the estimated attendance is 3,400 people.)

Anyway, complaining about it will not do any good. But I just wish for once that the NFL would be honest about it. If you don’t cater to smaller media outlets, please be up front about it. That’s your choice as all attendees are your guests. While that would bum me out a bit, that is something I could totally respect.

That said, as long as it’s held in Indianapolis (I’ve not heard if they extended the contract beyond 2010 or not) I will continue to throw our name in the hat. And who knows, maybe one year we’ll be able to attend.  But in the meantime I’ll sit back with the rest of you doing my best to follow what’s going on down at the Combine.

Hello fellow Indianapolis Colts fans! Please send in your Colts related videos, pictures & voicemails (317-565-4250) and we’ll get them posted to our Show Your Colts section.  Also, be sure to check out the Indianapolis Colts Friendly Establishments list.

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Via the Indy Star:

Lafayette Square Mall management hopes plans to spruce up the mall’s exterior and improve security will help bring back customers and businesses.

“We’re working to re-create the mall as a family-friendly shopping mall,” said Phil Thornton, mall manager, who noted that another of his challenges is to fill space caused by the closure of Macy’s, Sears and Steve & Barry’s stores.

“We’ve experienced tough times like everybody else. We really think it will bring in new tenants,” he said.

I actually went to Lafayette “Scare” Mall on Monday night and I have to say that it has went downhill fast.  Back in the mid-late 1990’s it was renovated and pretty nice, but since then it has quickly went back to how it was before.

I don’t have the time to adequately go into all of the reasons that this may have happened, but in my opinion the blame cannot be placed solely on mall management even though they have clearly been grasping at straws to fill the vacant spaces.  (An old jewelery store filled with cell-phone cases & “bling”? A kiosk full of Kung-fu movies being sold at $12 a pop? Really? Come on guys. And that’s only what I saw in walking less than half of the mall.)

The tenants would also have to take some blame (yes, even the big names like Macy’s) due to their merchandise selection (they clearly didn’t properly evaluate their customer base).  Finding any clothes there for adults beyond athletic attire has been difficult at best for quite some time and I’ve had to head to the suburbs to have any luck.

And in my opinion the city has really dropped the ball in the entire Lafayette Square Corridor, which is probably the biggest issue at hand.  There are numerous vacant spots. Some get filled for a time, but not with anything you’d consider an “anchor”.  And when they do get big name stores to commit, they are given tax incentives to build new buildings.  While I don’t have an issue with new stores coming in (we want that), it seems silly to continuously build new shopping strips which are nice for a while until the tenants clear out for new construction or go out of business (K-Mart, Phar-more, Media Play, Hobby Lobby, Cub Foods, Galyan’s, Value City, Office Depot, Toys R Us, Venture, Waccamaw, Sears, Macy’s, Michael’s, etc.).

I don’t claim to believe that there’s a quick, easy & inexpensive fix, but something has to be done if we don’t want the entire area to be ran down.

But I do honestly think that if the right people were willing and able to invest in the community, we could create something unique that fuels the area, including being a small business incubator.  And we could build on that top of the already existing smorgasbord of ethnic cuisine options we have, which by nature is small business. Who’s in?

Here is the Indianapolis Colts 2009 preseason and regular season schedule.  Note that games later in the season may be changed due to the NFL’s Flex Schedule starting on Week 11.  If you spot a time change that isn’t listed, please let me know.

2009 PRESEASON

2009 REGULAR SEASON

Via my WISH TV 8 alerts:

Fishers police have closed down I-69 in both directions at 116th Street.

According to Fishers police, a complaint about the driver of the vehicle led to police stopping the vehicle in question. The person in the vehicle is thought to be emotionally unstable and was refusing to exit the vehicle. 24 Hour News 8 Jim Shella reported that after a brief standoff, police shot out one of the windows on the truck and then were able to remove the suspect from the vehicle.

I-69 is still closed between I-465 and State Route 238. Visit WISHTV.com for the latest updates and traffic information on this breaking story.

People are losing their minds, but knowing how people drive on that stretch I’m actually surprised that this hasn’t happened sooner. I vote they rename I-69 The Interstate of Death and Insanity.

Via the Indy Star:

The [Indiana] lottery proceeds fell by nearly $40 million in the past fiscal year, the highest percentage drop in the nation.

And you say that like it’s a bad thing? Seriously? Yes, I know that the lottery “helps” out with a lot of things like the Excise Tax, but come on, this isn’t a good way to go about it.

Sure, I’ve gambled before, but I can do the math and realize going in that I’m probably not going to get my money back. Which is why I’m more of a penny slot kind of guy if I’m in a casino (or even better, the half-penny slots).  And which is why I’d rather put my money into the stock market where you at least have a fair chance to make a profit as long as you’re not foolish about what you’re doing.

That said, I don’t have a fully formulated answer to a better solution at the moment.  But I do know that dangling the slim chance of getting “rich” in front of the middle class & poor as a means of collecting more money is just wrong. We’ve got to do better. Maybe the state should start acting like a productive business as opposed to a welfare recipient sitting on the couch munching on chips and chocolates.  Maybe the state should create something useful that our citizens (and anyone else for that matter) could buy instead of legally stealing the money of those who don’t understand probability and/or who have a gambling addition.  But of course, this is an inflated bureaucracy we’re talking about here. I’m just a small business owner who has worked his tail off to make a successful go at it. What do I know?

At 5:18 PM EDT Fall 2009 officially arrived here in Indiana where we were slightly above our average temperature of 76 degrees for the day.  But don’t worry, those highs will quickly be falling by an average of one degree every two and a half days and that glorious three week string of 60-some degree October days will be here before you know it.

Some Fall items to chew on:

• The average first measurable snowfall in Indianapolis occurs on November 19th (right around Thanksgiving most years).
• The earliest first measurable snowfall in Indianapolis occurred on October 18th, 1989.
• The Halloween ZooBoo occurs on October 16-18, 22-25 & 29-30.
• The average high on Halloween is 59 degrees & the average low on Halloween is 39 degrees (bundle up kids).
• The Irvington Halloween Festival is on Halloween this year from 9am to 5pm. (You guys had an awesome website a few years ago…why, oh, why did you go with Blogspot?)
• Halloween occurs on October 31st. (I know you’re thinking, “duh”, but some communities set trick-or-treating for the weekend and/or multiple days, which isn’t an issue this year.)
• Thanksgiving Day is Thursday, November 26th.
• The 2009 Thanksgiving Day NFL Football schedule consists of:
  • Green Bay Packers @ Detroit Lions 12:30 PM on FOX
  • Oakland Raiders @ Dallas Cowboys 4:15 PM on CBS
  • New York Giants @ Denver Broncos 8:20 PM on NFL Network (This is the best game of the day which is unfortunate since the NFL (and Comcast in my case) has their heads up their back sides and hardly anyone has the channel. Not to mention their coverage is horrible and the online viewing option is even worse.)
• But don’t fear, ESPN has us covered with Texas at Texas A&M at 8 PM.

Anyway, enjoy the outdoors while you still can and break out the fire pits, for a month from now it could be snowing around these parts.

Via WISH TV Channel 8 (Indianapolis):

The city says the Ellenberger Park rink is far too expensive to run, so it is not opening this year (the winter of 2009-10). “We really cannot afford to continue to use taxpayers dollars to support a system in which we lose several hundred thousand dollars a year to operate,” said Paula Freund, Indy Parks.

That is sad news for my childhood neighborhood.  I haven’t been out there for quite a few years now, but the last few times I had been it was deserted, so I’m not really surprised at the cost-cutting move.  Lets hope things improve over the next year.

Mel Simon died this morning at the age of 82. Mel was best known around Indianapolis as chairman emeritus of the board of Simon Property Group (mainly malls, malls & more malls) and owner of the Indiana Pacers.  To say that he had a major impact on the city, as well as the entire country, would be an understatement.  Most recently Mel and his wife, Bren, donated $25 million to Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center at the IU School of Medicine campus in Indianapolis.

Check out the Indy Star for an in depth article about Mel Simon.