John Adams, MD

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — John G. Adams, M.D. has joined Sigma Medical Group.

Prior to joining Sigma, Dr. Adams worked as a family medicine physician in Danville, IL for more than 20 years.

Dr. Adams will begin seeing new patients as of June 1, 2009. His office is located at 2323 Ferry Street, Suite 103, Lafayette. To schedule an appointment, please call (765) 449-9810.

The Sigma Medical Group, a St. Elizabeth Regional Health partner, is a multi-specialty physician group comprised of 27 doctors with 14 medical specialties.

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LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The City of Lafayette has learned that its request for $7,774,200 in neighborhood stabilization funding has been granted, Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski said. The money is targeted for the Glen Acres neighborhood. It will help create 15 new single-family homes, rehabilitate another eight homes and provide 89 rental units.

“This is huge. Huge news and huge funding,” Roswarski said. “We will receive the full amount we requested, and it’s going to save and revitalize an entire Lafayette neighborhood. We’re going to stretch every dollar and make an immeasurable impact on Lafayette through a unique public/private partnership.”

Funding was awarded by the Indiana Housing & Community Redevelopment Authority in response to a grant request submitted in March.

Of the $7.7 million, $5.5 million will be used to help transform the blighted property that once was the Bridgeway apartment complex into a new housing development. The city had earlier acquired the Bridgeway site and now is working with Brinshore Development LLC of Northbrook, Ill., to create the planned $15 million Chatham Square. It will be a 98-unit housing development, with 89 rental properties and nine single-family homes. Work on that project is slated to begin next summer and be completed by yearend 2011.

With the funding, the City of Lafayette also will purchase, renovate and resell eight single-family homes, and purchase and demolish another six. Habitat for Humanity will then build six new homes on those sites.

“Our vision is that homeownership in the Glen Acres neighborhood will rise, more families with children will move into the neighborhood and school enrolment will stabilize,” said Dennis Carson, director of redevelopment for the City of Lafayette.

“A city-wide team has been working on this project for months to identify innovative ways to save and enhance this neighborhood,” said Aimee Jacobsen, director of Community Development for the City of Lafayette. “We’ve reached out to many groups who have come to the table with ideas, assistance and enthusiasm.”

Those groups include Area IV Agency on Aging, Glen Acres School, Lafayette School Corp., Habitat for Humanity, Lafayette Neighborhood Housing Services, Purdue University Landscape Architecture, Tecumseh Area Partnership, Tippecanoe County Council on Aging, United Way of Greater Lafayette and Wabash Center.

The name for Chatham Square comes from an earlier owner of the property, the Chatham family, who farmed the property until the mid-1950s.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue Research Park officials dedicated a 105,000-square-foot technology center on Wednesday (May 27) in honor of Heddy Kurz and her late husband, Herman Kurz, a Purdue University electrical engineering alumnus.

More than 200 people gathered for the dedication of the Herman and Heddy Kurz Purdue Technology Center in the Purdue Research Park. The 105,000-square-foot facility will house the Purdue Research Foundation offices, provide space for up to 26 companies and support up to 275 jobs. (Purdue University photo/Andrew Hancock)

The Herman and Heddy Kurz Purdue Technology Center, 1281 Win Hentschel Blvd., will house the Purdue Research Foundation offices, provide space for up to 26 companies and support about 275 jobs. Heddy, who lives in Louisville, made a deferred gift in the amount of $3 million in honor of Herman to help fund the $14.5 million, 13-acre Purdue Research Park expansion.

“This is the first gift of this magnitude that the Purdue Research Foundation has received to name a facility in the Purdue Research Park,” said France A. Córdova, president of both Purdue and the Purdue Research Foundation. “The Herman and Heddy Kurz Purdue Technology Center represents the Purdue Research Park’s success in economic development.”

Kurz previously donated $1.9 million for the Herman and Heddy Kurz Atrium in the Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering and $2 million for the Herman and Heddy Kurz Lobby in the Richard and Patricia Lawson Computer Science Building. The couple also has supported the purchase and maintenance of instruments for the Purdue band.

“Herman used to say that his professional success came from the educational foundation he received while at Purdue,” Kurz said. “I know he would be proud of the gifts bestowed on Purdue to make it an even greater university.”

Heddy Kurz speaks at Wednesday's (May 27) dedication of the Herman and Heddy Kurz Purdue Technology Center in the Purdue Research Park. Heddy Kurz gave a $3 million deferred gift for the building. (Purdue University photo/Andrew Hancock)

Herman Kurz worked as an electrical engineer throughout his career. While a student at Purdue, he was treasurer of the Literary Society and a member of the debate team, Purdue Marching Band, Kappa Phi Sigma honorary society, YMCA, Purdue Athletic Association and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. Heddy Kurz attended the University of Louisville.

As part of the transition to the new facility, foundation employees moved out of the original Purdue Technology Center. The first center, which opened in 1999 and expanded in 2005, contains more than 100,000 square feet of laboratory and office space. The building has operated at capacity since opening.

“The Herman and Heddy Kurz Purdue Technology Center and the Innovation Center dedicated last month will help us meet the expansion needs of current research park companies and make room for new companies wishing to move into the park,” said Joseph B. Hornett, senior vice president, treasurer and COO of the Purdue Research Foundation, which manages the Purdue Research Park. “The new facility also has conference rooms and a larger lobby area that will give us the space we need to host events for the more than 160 companies in the West Lafayette park.”

With the addition of the two new buildings, the Purdue Research Park of West Lafayette has about 364,000 square feet of incubation space, making it the largest business incubator complex in the state. Sample Street Business Complex in South Bend is second with 188,383 square feet.

“The state has a number of incubators like the Purdue Research Park where entrepreneurs can get the support they need in the early stages of innovation,” said Mitch Roob, Indiana Secretary of Commerce and chief executive officer of the Indiana Economic Development Corp. “The state’s ongoing partnerships with the Purdue Research Park and the many companies developing the technology of tomorrow are vitally important to our economic base.”

The fund was created in 1999 by the Indiana General Assembly to stimulate the process of diversifying the state’s economy by developing and commercializing advanced technologies.

The development of the new facility also was supported through the city of West Lafayette’s $1.5 million 10-year tax abatement.

“Our partnership with the Purdue Research Foundation is important to the city of West Lafayette and to the economic health of our region,” Mayor John Dennis said. “The park has more than 3,700 employees earning an average annual wage of $54,000. Those statistics are terrific by themselves, but then you add those figures with the jobs created outside the park just because of the presence of Purdue Research Park in our city.”

According to the October 2007 Battelle study “Characteristics and Trends in North American Research Parks: 21st Century Directions,” every job in a university research park generated an average of 2.57 jobs in the economy.

“Overall, we still have a strong manufacturing base in the state but that is diminishing, and in the past decade the economic landscape of Indiana has shifted to life sciences such as medical and biomedical devices,” said Gerry Dick, president and managing editor of Grow Indiana Media Ventures LLC, who spoke at the event. “This changing economy is strongly supported by the Purdue Research Park and other statewide initiatives that encourage the development and commercialization of life science discoveries. The job creation in and around these incubators is phenomenal.”

WASHINGTON, DC – The Internal Revenue Service today announced that interest rates for the calendar quarter beginning July 1, 2009, will remain the same. The rates will be:

• four (4) percent for overpayments [three (3) percent in the case of a corporation];
• four (4) percent for underpayments;
• six (6) percent for large corporate underpayments; and
• one and one-half (1.5) percent for the portion of a corporate overpayment exceeding $10,000.

Under the Internal Revenue Code, the rate of interest is determined on a quarterly basis.  For taxpayers other than corporations, the overpayment and underpayment rate is the federal short-term rate plus 3 percentage points.  Generally, in the case of a corporation, the underpayment rate is the federal short-term rate plus 3 percentage points and the overpayment rate is the federal short-term rate plus 2 percentage points.  The rate for large corporate underpayments is the federal short-term rate plus 5 percentage points.  The rate on the portion of a corporate overpayment of tax exceeding $10,000 for a taxable period is the federal short-term rate plus one-half (0.5) of a percentage point.

The interest rates announced today are computed from the federal short-term rate during April 2009 to take effect May 1, 2009, based on daily compounding.

Revenue Ruling 2009-17, announcing the rates of interest, is attached and will appear in Internal Revenue Bulletin No. 2009-26, dated June 29, 2009.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Even though it’s been an unusually wet spring in Indiana, it was cold enough to limit the conversion of anhydrous ammonia to nitrate during the rainy periods, said a Purdue University expert.

Even though it's been an unusually wet spring in Indiana, it was cold enough to limit the conversion of anhydrous ammonia to nitrate during the rainy periods, said a Purdue University expert.

Nitrogen losses should be about average because of the cooler-than-normal temperatures across the state, said Jim Camberato, Purdue Extension soil fertility and plant nutrition specialist.

“If a farmer applied anhydrous in the fall, the average loss would be estimated at about 30 percent of the nitrogen if they did not use a nitrification inhibitor such as N-Serve,” Camberato said. “Fortunately, most Indiana farmers apply their anhydrous in the fall with a nitrification inhibitor, and we estimate the average loss to be about 15 percent of the applied nitrogen.”

A nitrification inhibitor slows the conversion of nitrogen to nitrate — the form that is lost.

“For anhydrous applied in the spring without a nitrification inhibitor, we also estimate 15 percent of the nitrogen to be lost,” he said. “If a nitrification inhibitor is used with spring anhydrous, dependent on when it was put out, losses will be minimal.”

Camberato said farmers who planted shortly after anhydrous application should watch for anhydrous injury, particularly in sandy soils.

The best application of nitrogen is to sidedress UAN (urea ammonium nitrate) or anhydrous UAN by either injecting it into the soil or dribbling it onto the soil surface, he said. If it’s injected at least 2 inches deep, ammonia loss is eliminated. When dribbled on the soil surface, losses of UAN are only about 5 percent of the nitrogen applied.

“A broadcast application of UAN between the corn rows or a broadcast application of urea left on the soil surface have the potential to lose 15 or 30 percent of the nitrogen content as ammonia to the air, so I do not recommend them,” Camberato said. “If you want to leave urea on the surface, then adding a urease inhibitor, such as Agrotain to the urea should be considered.”

However, he said making an injected application of UAN would still be better than adding the inhibitor to urea.

Because nitrogen is relatively expensive compared to grain lately, one should consider the cost of nitrogen and the value of the grain for determining the rate of sidedress nitrogen application, Camberato explained. A Corn Nitrogen Rate Calculator based on recent Purdue research by Camberato and Bob Nielsen, Purdue Extension corn management specialist, is available at http://extension.agron.iastate.edu/soilfertility/nrate.aspx. The calculator is designed to help farmers calculate the economic return to nitrogen with different nitrogen prices and corn prices. For more information on modifying recommendations derived from the calculator, visit http://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/NitrogenMgmt.pdf