Charlotte, N.C.-based The Ghazi Co. announced today that Big City Lanes, an upscale bowling alley, is the first tenant to be secured for Ghazi's proposed mixed-use development in downtown Milwaukee.

Afshin Ghazi, founder and president of The Ghazi Co., made the announcement this morning at the fifth annual Small Business Times Commercial Real Estate and Development Conference. A record sellout crowd of 600 attended the event at the Italian Community Center in downtown Milwaukee.

Ghazi plans to develop the site at Fourth Street and Wisconsin Avenue across the street from the Midwest Airlines Center.

Ghazi said he hopes to have five to seven entertainment concepts in the development and four "white linen" upscale restaurants.

The project could create an entertainment hub for downtown Milwaukee, which Ghazi says has a "fragmented entertainment district."

Big City Lanes is a concept of Charlotte, N.C.-based Bar Management Group. The Milwaukee bowling alley will have about 18 lanes and will occupy 20,000 to 25,000 square feet of space in the Ghazi project, which is called Catalyst.

Big City Lanes will not be anything like a traditional blue collar Milwaukee bowling alley.

"This is martini lounge meets bowling alley," Ghazi said.

Ghazi plans to build a massive development at the downtown Milwaukee site with 200 residences (a mix of condominiums and luxury apartments) in a 26- to 27-story tower, at least 100,000 square feet of entertainment and retail space and a hotel with 160 to 170 rooms.

The theme for this year's Commercial Real Estate and Development Conference was "Back to the City." The event focused on the local and national trend of people moving back to urban areas, especially downtown areas, in cities large and small.

The speakers said demographic trends indicate that downtown Milwaukee's condominium market should remain strong for several years, despite the current national housing market slump. The number of childless households has declined in America and will continue to do so for the next 20 years, creating an opportunity to attract people to downtown housing, said professor Mark Eppli, the Robert B. Bell Sr. chair in Real Estate in the College of Business at Marquette University.

In Milwaukee County, the number of young professional and empty nester households with household incomes of more than $100,000 will increase during the next five years from 24,154 to 35,745, said Tony Smith, the practice leader of Chicago-based S.B. Friedman & Company, which did a detailed analysis of the downtown Milwaukee real estate market earlier this year.

That rising demographic creates an opportunity to attract more people to live downtown, Smith said.

"Once the short term issues with residential real estate are sorted out the underlying demand (for more downtown housing) is there," Smith said.

The next five years will be critical for the city of Milwaukee's efforts to revitalize itself because the first wave of the massive baby boomer demographic will move into retirement age during that time, said Brian Vandewalle, president and principal planner for Madison-based Vandewalle & Associates Inc.

The city must do all it can to attract these boomers to live, work and play here, instead of in southern states that traditionally attract retirees, which will provide an economic boost to the city, he said.

"We need to engage these people," Vandewalle said. "We need to unleash these people. We need to get these people to bring the jobs back."

While downtown Milwaukee has attracted residential development in recent years, the office market there remains soft. The biggest thing the city could do to improve the downtown office market is to build a modern rail mass transit system, Smith said.

He said a rail system would boost Milwaukee's office market because it would help bring large amounts of commuters into and out of the central business district each day.

Light rail has been a "tremendous success" in cities such as Minneapolis and Salt Lake City, which are both exceeding ridership projections and are planning to expand their systems, Smith said. Milwaukee has a similar population and job density in the downtown area to those of several comparable cities that have added light rail systems, he said.

In addition, the proposed KRM commuter rail service between Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha is "too important of an opportunity for this region to let go of," Smith said.

Rail systems attract development because the private sector is more willing to make investments when it sees the public sector adding permanent physical transportation infrastructure, Smith said.

"There are examples of this all over the country," he said. "Milwaukee seriously needs to consider investing in this technology."

Rexnord LLC, a Milwaukee-based diversified, multi-platform industrial company comprised of key platforms in power transmission and water management products, today reported fiscal second quarter income from operations of $65.1 million, which was a significant improvement over a loss of $18.7 million in the same period a year ago.

The company's second quarter sales were $453.9 million, an increase of $155.8 million, or 52.3, over the prior year's comparable quarter.

Bob Hitt, Rexnord's chief executive officer, said, "We're pleased with the financial results we've posted in the second quarter and first half of our fiscal 2008, as sales, operating income and adjusted EBITDA have all grown significantly over the comparable periods. Our solid core growth and expanding operating margins have allowed us to continue to generate solid cash flows and to continue to reduce our leverage. We're particularly proud of the strong core sales growth (year-over-year sales in both existing and acquired businesses) of 8.6 percent in the second quarter and 8.9 percent through the first half of fiscal 2008 as both platforms contributed, with the power transmission platform delivering first half sales growth of 8.4 percent and the water management platform posting 10.1 percent sales growth compared to the prior year first half on a pro-forma basis."

Rexnord, which operates the Falk Corp., is a division of RBS Global Inc.

Rockwell Automation Inc. today reported fiscal fourth quarter net income of $165.2 million, or $1.08 per share, compared with $165.8 million, or 94 cents per share, in the period a year ago.

The Milwaukee company's quarterly sales rose 15 percent to $1.4 billion from $1.2 billion a year earlier.

Commenting on the results, Keith Nosbusch, chairman and chief executive officer, said, "Our strong performance in the fourth quarter and the second half of the year demonstrated our ability to execute on our growth and performance strategy, again validating the continued strength of our business model. In another excellent year for Rockwell Automation, we achieved 10 percent revenue growth, increased segment operating margins to nearly 20 percent and expanded return on invested capital another 2 points to 24 percent. I am extremely proud of the efforts of our leadership team and employees in delivering these results."

Commenting about the company's outlook, Nosbusch said, "Looking ahead, we continue to see strength in customer demand in Europe and emerging markets. We believe our investments in technology leadership, expanded served markets and stronger global presence are creating more worldwide opportunities for growth than ever before, despite a deceleration in the rate of manufacturing growth in the North American market. The ongoing diversification of our revenue base, combined with our recent acquisitions, cause us to be optimistic that 2008 will be another good year for Rockwell Automation. We remain intensely focused on executing our growth and productivity initiatives."

Kohl's Corp. reported today that its October comparable store sales decreased 3.8 percent, reflecting a general slowdown in consumer spending.

The Menomonee Falls-based department store chain said its total sales increased 1.6 percent to $1.3 billion, reflecting the fact that it opened 100 more stores in the past year.

For the quarter ended Nov. 3, the company's total sales increased 4.8 percent while comparable store sales decreased 2.6 percent. For the 39 weeks ended Nov. 3, total sales were up 8.3 percent, while comparable stores sales increased 0.7 percent.

Larry Montgomery, Kohl's chairman and chief executive officer, said, "Sales in weather-sensitive businesses such as outerwear, fleece, and sweaters experienced significant declines on a comparable store basis, contributing to our sales shortfall."

Based on October's results, the company expects its third quarter earnings to be 59 to 60 cents per diluted share.

More than 70 percent of the bioscience executives who responded to the inaugural Wisconsin BioIndustry Outlook survey rated the current condition of the state's biotechnology and medical device industry as excellent or good.

Respondents were almost evenly split on whether the state of the industry would get better or stay the same during the next 12 months.

Bioscience executives are more optimistic about the prospects for their own company. Eighty-five percent of respondents ranked the prospects for their company as excellent or good. More than three-quarters of them said they expect things to get better for their company during the next 12 months.

The Wisconsin BioIndustry Outlook is being conducted quarterly by the Wisconsin Biotechnology and Medical Device Association and the state Department of Commerce. The same series of questions will be asked each quarter to gauge executives' perceptions of the state of the bioscience industry, the prospects for their company and the challenges it may be facing, the availability of capital and other issues. As a result, the survey will be the leading source of information about trends in one of Wisconsin's most rapidly growing industries.

"The Wisconsin Biotechnology and Medical Device Association is pleased to partner with the Department of Commerce on the development and ongoing execution of this exciting survey," said James Leonhart, executive vice president of the WBMDA. |"We view the quarterly Wisconsin BioIndustry Outlook as an important resource for our industry, the public and policymakers."

Access to capital was mentioned most frequently (45 percent) by executives as the greatest challenge facing their company. It was followed by speed to market (35 percent) and the availability of talented executives and other key personnel (20 percent). Industry leaders, however, see no dearth of innovation and creativity; stimulating ongoing innovation and creativity was cited as a challenge least frequently (12 percent).

When asked to rate the availability of capital to their company, almost half (48 percent) said it was only fair or poor. Forty-two percent rated it as good. Bioscience executives showed little optimism that access to capital will improve during the next 12 months.

Eighty-three percent of those senior bioscience executives surveyed said their company will be hiring additional personnel during the next 12 months. Sixty-four percent rated as good the ability of the current labor market to fill their company's personnel needs during the next 12 months.

"The results of the first BioIndustry Outlook are both exciting and instructive," Leonhart said. "Leaders in the bioscience industry are clearly enthusiastic about its future in Wisconsin. It is just as clear, however, that raising the capital needed to ensure that future remains a challenge for many in the industry. The survey also points to the need for continued, proactive work on workforce development issues facing the industry."

Efforts to revitalize downtown Green Bay are progressing. The Shopko Foundation today announced that it is sponsoring the proposed downtown riverwalk, called the CityDeck. Also, Middleton developer T. Wall Properties plans to demolish the Washington Commons Mall in downtown Green Bay to build a development in its place with ground-floor retail with offices above. Read more in SBT's daily roundup of headlines from newspapers across the state at www.biztimes.com.

A bipartisan new bill co-sponsored by U.S. Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) would provide tax relief for self-employed entrepreneurs, according to Kristie Darien, author of today's Milwaukee Biz Blog.

The BizTimes Stock Index fell 5.33 points to close at 172.85 Wednesday, and local stocks continued to plummet in early morning trading today. The largest local decliners this morning were Marshall & Ilsley Corp. (down $2.36 to $40.34) and Kohl's Corp. (down $2.28 to $48.59). The largest local advancers this morning were Rockwell Automation Inc. (up $4.63 to $71.00) and Weyco Group Inc. (up $1.11 to $27.99).

The BizTimes Stock Index was created by Small Business Times and is monitored by North Shore Bank. The index, which measures the stock values of publicly held companies based in southeastern Wisconsin, is updated daily and can be viewed at www.biztimes.com.