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September 28, 2001
Knight & Carver, San Diego’s largest yacht-building and repair facility, has announced that three large-scale commercial vessels have been launched and are now in operation on the West Coast.
The three yachts were designed by the Newport Beach-based yacht design firm of Morrelli & Melvin, which currently has a $2 million, 6-foot motor yacht in production at Knight & Carver, with launch set for early 2002.
The vessels now in operation include:
• '65 Fast Ferry Catamaran: "Fjordland" - A high-speed ferry, carrying 49 passengers at 28 knots between the Alaskan towns of Skagway, Haines and Juneau. Built for Alaska Fjordlines, this sleek, smooth-power catamaran features comfortable, aircraft-style seating and large windows that provide excellent viewing for all passengers. Value: $700,000
• 60' Charter Catamaran: "Lucky Lady" - Cruising at 22 knots and carrying up to 49 passengers, "Lucky Lady" is utilized by Kauai Sea Tours in Kauai in the Hawaiian islands for whale-watching and snorkeling tours. Value: $700,000.
• 55' Sportfishing Catamaran: "New El Dorado III" - With a top speed of 25 knots, this smooth-sailing catamaran now offers salt-water fishing excursions in San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. She holds 49 passengers comfortably. Value: $600,000.
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Atlas Hospitality Group has just published it’s Mid-Year 2001 California New Hotel Development Survey.
The survey compares the California hotel sales market for the first six months of 2001 with the same period in 2000.
Highlights of California include:
• Volume of transactions through first six months was down by 24.7 percent (166 in 2000 and 112 in 2001).
• Sales in Northern California were down 23 percent, Southern California was down 25 percent.
• The average price per room in California increased by 12.5 percent from $52,543 to $59,112, and the median by 28.3 percent up from $35,117 to $45,063.
• The average price per room in Northern California increased 6 percent from $65,761 to $69,705, while the median price per room increased by 8.7 percent, up from $44,762 to $48,683.
• The average price per room in Southern California increased by 13.5 percent up from $48,530 to $55,076, while the median price per room increased by 27.8 percent up from $33,333 to $42,611.
• The median price per room in Northern California leads Southern California by 12.4 percent (last year the difference was 34.3 percent).
• Largest hotel sale in California in the first half of 2001 was the 297-room Hotel Nikko, which was sold for $82,300,000. Le Meridien Hotels was the buyer.
In San Diego County:
• The volume of hotel sales increased by 75 percent during the first six months of 2001, the third largest increase in sales in all California counties.
• The average price per room jumped 56.7 percent to $74,204 and the median price per room was up 40.1 percent to $52,720.
• The U.S. Grant Hotel with 285 rooms was the largest hotel sold in San Diego County during the first half of 2001.
• At $206,000 per room the U.S. Grant Hotel also was the most expensive hotel sold in San Diego County in the first half of 2001, eclipsing the $203,160 per room price paid for the Loews Coronado Bay Resort last year.
Atlas has been tracking new hotel development in the State since 1997 and is widely recognized as the expert on the California hotel market.
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Burnham Real Estate Services ONCOR International reports that EdVision Corp. has signed a six-year, $2 million lease for 16,459 square feet of office space on the Eighth Floor of 110 W. A Street in Downtown.
EdVision, an educational software development company, has moved into the space.
Burnham’s Lynn LaChapelle and Pascal Aubry-Dumand represented the lessor, Burnham Pacific Properties Inc. Brad Bennett of CB Richard Ellis represented EdVision.
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Richard Heath & Associates, an energy consulting firm, has signed a five-year lease for 4,795 square feet of office space at 7847 Convoy Court, suites 102 and 105, in the Executive Park in San Diego.
Total consideration was $429,000.
The lessor was Westcore Industrial Properties. Both sides in the transaction represented themselves.
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Also through Westcore, Holland & Silvers Inc. has signed a five-year lease for 7,750-square feet of office and warehouse space at 9692 Via Excelencia, suites 100 and 102, in the Scripps Miramar Business Park in San Diego.
The space will be used for offices and storage of tile, marble and stone floor covering.
Total consideration was $437,000.
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Mitchell Medical, a San Diego-based provider of cost-effective medical claims processing solutions for the auto insurance industry, announced the formation of a Mitchell Medical Advisory Panel to advise the company on the latest medical trends and to review its policies, procedures and software to ensure ongoing accuracy.
Named as director of the panel is Dr. Christopher R. Brigham, an internationally recognized expert in impairment and disability assessment, medical-legal issues and the field of independent medical evaluations.
As president of Portland, Maine-based Brigham and Associates, Inc., Brigham has served as a senior consultant to international corporations, insurance companies, governmental agencies and health care organizations.
He is a leading expert on the use of the American Medical Association Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, serving as the editor of the AMA Guides Newsletter.
"I am very excited to lend my expertise to Mitchell, especially with its dedication to providing the insurance industry with the most accurate information available to settle automobile bodily injury claims," Brigham says. "My goal for this panel will be to make sure that Mitchell's Web-based tools always include the most up-to-date medical data."
"We are proud to have someone of Dr. Brigham's caliber head our medical advisory panel," says Tom McCarthy, senior v.p. and g.m. of Mitchell Medical. "The formation of this panel further demonstrates our ongoing commitment to providing our customers with the best products available in the industry."
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San Diego-based Entropia will integrate its enterprise software with that of the Globus toolkit, a core open-source technology that enables grid computing.
The Entropia announcement follows the recent IBM announcement of a major grid initiative based on Globus technologies.
Grid computing aggregates the power of many disparate computers into one large computing resource for business and R&D applications.
Entropia's enterprise distributed computing grid software harnesses this power from very large numbers of installed Windows PC's.
Globus' software harnesses this power from non-PC computers, and is a widely accepted middleware standard for creating grids across multiple physical locations and institutions.
The combination of the two technologies will allow enterprise customers to further accelerate time to market and leverage their sunk cost in IT infrastructure by augmenting their existing high performance computers with the vast computational and storage resources in desktop PCs made accessible through Entropia's technologies.
"We are excited to see Entropia, a leader in desktop distributed computing grids, adopting Globus protocols to increase interoperability for users and applications," says Ian Foster of Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago. "Commodity PCs are the most widely available computing resource, and Entropia's ability to aggregate this CPU power provides the heretofore missing piece of the overall capability Globus provides: linking multiple computers of different types to create a large `virtual computer,'" he says.
"This effort combines the capabilities of Entropia and Globus, extending the reach of both, which is crucial to the growth and adoption of Grid technologies," says Carl Kesselman of the University of Southern California, Information Sciences Institute. "Entropia has led the way in commodity desktop distributed computing on the Internet and proved in the Enterprise market place that their technology delivers for customers with computationally intensive needs in the same way that Globus has proved valuable in linking non-commodity computing resources to do the same," he says.
Foster and Kesselman are the co-leaders of the Globus Project.
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Websense Inc. has achieved certification for Check Point's new Next Generation security software platform.
The certification means that Websense's market-leading EIM software has been rigorously tested by both Websense and Check Point to ensure integration with Check Point's newly launched NG, creating a seamless solution that is scalable, flexible and easy to deploy.
Customers benefit from Check Point's streamlined "Security Dashboard" management console, centralized management and multi-gigabit performance, as well as Websense Enterprise's comprehensive feature set, which includes eight different policy management options and the industry's largest and most accurate database of categorized Web sites.
"We are pleased to see Websense achieve certification for its EIM solutions," says Upesh Patel, manager of the Open Platform for Security Alliance for Check Point Software Technologies. "The integration of Websense Enterprise with Check Point's Next Generation offers customers a best-of-breed employee Internet management solution for proactively managing employee Internet use and conserving network bandwidth."
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Motorists who have experienced two consecutive weeks of moderate price declines at the pump should see continued lower prices as local and national suppliers seek stability following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.
The Automobile Club of Southern California and the American Automobile Association join with U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in pointing to abundant supplies of crude oil and refined gasoline.
"Any continuing fears of limited supplies of gasoline are misplaced," says Carol Thorp, spokeswoman for the Auto Club. "In the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., a few isolated retailers raised their gas prices. But the major oil companies moved quickly to end those isolated practices.
"Over the past two weeks, the nation's gasoline supplies have remained normal for this time of year and demand is declining, causing pump prices to be lower."
The average price in San Diego was $1.724, down 1.5 cents from Sept. 13.
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Lightspan Inc., a San Diego-based provider of curriculum-based software and Internet products and services used in schools and homes, has signed a three-year, million dollar contract to supply Internet subscription products and professional development services to the San Antonio Independent School District.
San Antonio ISD is the eighth largest school district in Texas, serving more than 55,000 students in 93 schools.
Under terms of the agreement, Lightspan will provide The Lightspan Network to 73 schools and eduTest.com to 81 schools.
Lightspan currently has more than 3,300 Internet subscription schools across the country.
"This million dollar order for our Internet subscription service is second only to the $2.7 million dollar Internet contract that we received from the New York City public school system,” says John Kernan, Lightspan chairman and CEO. “This significant commitment is not only an investment in a proven educational technology, but also an investment in the district's entire school community. We commend the San Antonio school district for taking a leadership role in improving academic achievement."
The Lightspan Network is a subscription-based online resource that combines assessment, content, instructional tools and resources, professional development, and add-on modules-all in an online program that is easily personalized for administrators, teachers, students, and families.
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The San Diego Historical Society will present a panel discussion at 2 p.m. Nov. 3 on the ecology and future of the Salton Sea, California's largest lake.
Held in the Thornton Theatre in the Society’s flagship Balboa Park location, the panel will be moderated by Robert Kittle, Editorial Page editor of The San Diego Union Tribune.
Panelists include: Michael J. Cohen, The Pacific Institute; Dr. Milton Friend, chief scientist, Salton Sea Science Office; Steve Horvitz, superintendent, Salton Sea State Park; Thomas J. Kirk, executive director, Salton Sea Authority; and Sylvia R. Pelizza, Sonny Bono National Wildlife Refuge.
For reservations, call (619) 232-6203. Admission is $5 and includes entry to the exhibit, In Search of Eldorado: The Salton Sea with photographs by Christopher Landis.
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AIDS Walk San Diego has received nearly $20,000 in online donations for the 12th annual Walk/Run taking place Sunday, Oct. 7 in Balboa Park.
The success of the online registration and donation initiatives have been instrumental in helping AIDS Walk close in on its fund-raising goals as donations continue to come in to the organization's Web site, www.aidswalksd.org.
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