The Milwaukee Brewers today announced that the club will honor Major League Baseball Commissioner and former Brewers owner Allan H. (Bud) Selig with a statue at Miller Park’s Home Plate Plaza.
“We are proud to honor Commissioner Selig for all of his efforts on behalf of the Milwaukee Brewers and Major League Baseball,” said Brewers owner Mark Attanasio. “The Brewers and Miller Park are in this city because of the Commissioner’s vision and dedicated efforts. Just as importantly, he has remained a prominent and highly philanthropic member of our community while effectively leading Major League Baseball during his tenure as baseball’s top executive.” 
Selig’s statue will join those of Hank Aaron and Robin Yount, which were unveiled on April 5, 2001, the first year of Miller Park’s existence. The first two statues were donated by the Allan H. (Bud) Selig Foundation.
The Selig statue will be cast in bronze, measure over seven feet in height, not including the base, and is being designed and produced by Brian Maughan, who (along with Douglas Kwart) also created the Yount and Aaron statues.
The ceremony to unveil the new statue will be staged on Aug. 24 at 1 p.m. at Miller Park.
Selig’s first significant move as a baseball executive was to return Major League Baseball to his hometown in 1970, when he founded the Milwaukee Brewers. He also led the efforts to develop Miller Park to replace County Stadium in 2001, effectively keeping the franchise in Milwaukee.

MPH Amusements LLC will open Wisconsin’s first Jump!Zone play center for children in Franklin.
The company has signed a lease to open the indoor party and play center for children ages 2 to 12 years old at 6544 S. Lovers Lane Road, near Highway 100. The center will open this spring.
Jump!Zone features large inflatables, interactive games, toddler activities, obstacle courses, giant slides and more. Jump!Zone specializes in parties. The center will be equipped to handle fundraiser or group events such as schools, daycare centers, sports teams, scouts and home schools.
Jump!Zone has locations throughout the United States, including California, Florida, Maryland and Texas.
The Franklin center will occupy the newly constructed, 14,000-square foot Suite 210 in the Garden Plaza. The center was previously occupied by Roundy’s Supermarkets Inc.
The strip center was previously lacking a major anchor tenant. Jump!Zone hopes to fulfill that void and attract more co-tenants to the remaining vacant space. Current tenants of the strip center include: Gus’ Mexican Cantina, Wolf Pool & Spas, Year Round Tanning, Aurora Pharmacy and Kumon Learning Center.
Stephen Provancher of NAI MLG Commercial represented Jump!Zone in the lease transaction.

Anchor BanCorp Wisconsin Inc. (ABCW) announced a fiscal third quarter net loss of $9.0 million, or 58 cents per share, which was an improvement over a net loss of $72.0 million for the previous quarter and $167.1 million for the same period a year ago.
As a result of the third quarter loss, ABCW remains undercapitalized at the bank level according to the terms of the Order to Cease and Desist by the Office of Thrift Supervision. Being undercapitalized subjects the bank to several operating restrictions, including increased premiums for deposit insurance, prior approval from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in order to access brokered deposits, and increased scrutiny by the Office of Thrift Supervision
The company is taking the following actions effort to improve its capital position: continued reduction of balance sheet through loan sales and other strategies; the sale of 11 non-core branches planned to close in first half of 2010; improvement of profitability through continued cost reduction initiatives; and entering into agreements with Badger Anchor Holdings LLC, which will make an investment of more than 483 million shares of common stock at 60 cents per share, for an aggregate equity investment of up to $290 million.
Anchor’s net loss declined 95 percent from one year ago and 84 percent from the previous quarter. The company’s loan loss provisions declined nearly 83 percent from the previous quarter and were down nearly 89 percent from a year ago.
"Despite the third quarter loss, we continue to make progress toward upgrading our credit quality standards, strategically repositioning our balance sheet and, most importantly, returning the bank to profitability," said ABCW president and chief executive officer Chris Bauer. "These results show signs that we're moving in the right direction."

Oshkosh Corp. announced today that its Oshkosh Defense division received another federal contract valued at more than $84 million from the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command Life Cycle Management Command (TACOM LCMC) to supply more than 625 add-on armor kits for the MRAP All Terrain Vehicle (M-ATV).
Under the delivery order, Oshkosh will provide explosively formed penetrator (EFP) protection kits for the M-ATV. Delivery of the kits is expected to begin in April 2010 and be completed by the end of August 2010. The Oshkosh-supplied kits will include EFP armor, base door armor and a door-assist mechanism.
To date, Oshkosh has received awards valued at more than $4 billion to deliver 6,619 M-ATVs, as well as spare parts kits and aftermarket in-theater support.

The stock market was flat this morning, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average clinging to the 10,000 mark.
Local stocks in the BizTimes Stock Index also treaded water. The largest local gainers this morning were mining equipment manufacturers Bucyrus International Inc. (up $2.24 to $52.92) and Joy Global Inc. (up $1.06 to $45.60). The largest local decliners this morning were Badger Meter Inc. (down $1.30 to $35.36) and Rockwell International Inc. (down 43 cents to $48.19).

Madison's highest paid city government employee last year wasn't the mayor. It wasn't the police chief. It wasn't even the head of Metro Transit. It was bus driver John E. Nelson. Nelson earned $159,258 in 2009, including $109,892 in overtime and other pay. He and his colleague, driver Greg Tatman, who earned $125,598, were among the city's top 20 earners for 2009, city records show. They're among the seven bus drivers who made more than $100,000 last year thanks to a union contract that lets the most senior drivers who have the highest base salaries get first crack at overtime. Read more in BizTimes Milwaukee's headlines from around the state at http://www.biztimes.com/#news.

If the federal government implements strong energy policies that encourage alternative energy and use of cutting edge high-capacity batteries, the Midwest’s manufacturing hub stands to gain significantly, according to a report by the nonprofit Climate Group and the University of Michigan. “American Innovation: Manufacturing Low Carbon Technologies in the Midwest” looks at the impacts on wind turbine, hybrid powertrain and advanced battery manufacturing. Read more in the new edition of the BizTimes Manufacturing Weekly.

The commentary and debate over southeastern Wisconsin’s mass transit future continues today with a Milwaukee Biz Blog by Wisconsin Technology Council president Tom Still, who says the allocation of $810 million in federal stimulus money for a high-speed rail connection between Milwaukee and Madison will create jobs and give Wisconsin a significant competitive advantage.

Seven of 20 indicators of business activity in the Milwaukee area registered improvement in December, according to a monthly report by the Metropolitan
Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC).

This marks the highest number of improvements posted since August 2008 and an upturn from the five improvements posted in November.

“In recent months the aggregate picture of local economic indicators suggests that Milwaukee’s economy has turned the corner and is on the mend,” said Bret Mayborne, economic research director for the MMAC. “While Milwaukee’s economy is likely to continue to improve throughout 2010, it will take the better part of this year, perhaps all of this year, before the local economy posts real year-over-year employment growth.”

The improved MMAC survey results affirm a BizTimes survey of the board of directors of the MMAC's Council of Small Business Executives (COSBE), in which more than 89 percent of the respondents said they believe the worst of the recession has passed and the economy is on the rebound.

Highlights of the MMAC's report today include:

• Three of Milwaukee’s 10 major industry sectors posted year-over-year employment
  increases. The highest gain came in the educational & health services sector, which posted a 0.7-percent gain from the same month a year ago. The heaviest percentage decline was posted in the construction, mining & natural resources sector, down 14.1 percent from year-ago levels.
• New car registrations in the metro area rose 28.1 percent in December over year-ago levels, this indicator’s first increase in four months and only the second year-over-year increase in 2009.
• Mortgages recorded in Milwaukee County rose 54 percent to 2,933 - this indicator’s seventh consecutive rise.
• Air passenger statistics at Mitchell International Airport finished 2009 strongly with four consecutive months of double-digit gains. Passengers numbered 728,067 in December, a 33.9-percent increase over year-ago levels.

The local employment market reflected mixed results.

New unemployment compensation claims in the metro area fell 17.3 percent in December (vs. December, 2008), following a 4.5-percent decline in November (vs. one year-ago), marking the first back-to-back declines in this indicator in almost three years (since January 2007). Conversely, the number of unemployed rose at a 44-percent pace in December (vs. one year ago), the 15th consecutive month of year-over-year increase. Despite double-digit increases, year-over-year growth in the number of unemployed has slowed in each of the past eight months.

Metro Milwaukee’s seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate averaged 8.6 percent in December, a 2.9-percentage point increase over one year ago. December’s local unemployment rate ranks lower than the 9.7 percent rate recorded nationally, but higher than Wisconsin’s 8.3 percent rate.

Employment levels in the Milwaukee area averaged 793,600 in December, the first time that local nonfarm employment levels have dipped below 800,000 in over 14 years (since, April, 1995). December’s 5.7-percent job decline matches November’s year-over-year rate but ranks smaller than declines posted in October and September.

The value of signed construction contracts, as reported by F.W. Dodge for November, was $145.6 million, down 38.6 percent from November, 2008.