After three decades as the Gaslamp Quarter’s pioneer dining destination, the Old Spaghetti Factory is closing next month for remodeling, says new g.m. Carrie Richards. A chunk of its lower Fifth Avenue space will be part of the Hard Rock Hotel, a 400-room, 12-story project aiming to open in summer 2006. The popular pasta palace regains its lost space by expanding into its upstairs level, targeting a spring reopening. In the meantime, the Spaghetti Factory’s bar, which is moving upstairs, still offers one of Downtown’s tastiest cocktail deals, the $4.50 Tanqueray and Tonic.

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Downtown’s newest parking garage, the 6th & K Parkade between the Gaslamp Quarter and Petco Park, has produced $209,970 in revenue for the city since its summer opening. Now it is about to land a restaurant. Oggi’s Pizza and Brewery is seeking a permit from CCDC to operate a sidewalk café serving alcohol in conjunction with live entertainment at restaurant located on the 1,230-space garage’s L Street side.

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The latest luncheon installment in the “Airports of the 21st Century” program made another solid case for why San Diego needs a larger airport. The theme was “How Airports Attract Tech Business.” James A. Wilding, former president and CEO of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, and Thomas G. Morr, founder of the Washington Airports Task Force, spoke of how the forced growth of Dulles spurred the creation of 30 million square feet of office space. Local business leaders argue a new airport, of at least 3,000 acres compared with Lindbergh Field’s 600 acres, will spark the local economy. One guest privately noted the paradox of how the great job Thella Bowens is doing running Lindbergh could influence the decision San Diegans make when they go to the polls in 2006 to pick a future airport site.

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Construction has reached the sixth floor and home sales have hit 90 percent at M2i, CityMark Development’s seven-story building of 230 loft homes to open next summer between 10th and 11th avenues two blocks from Petco Park Downtown. The 35 studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom floor plans are priced from the mid-$300,000s. M2i includes underground parking, central garden courtyard and rooftop terrace. The sales studio is at 11th Avenue and J Street. For more, call (619) 238-3662 or go to citymarkdev.com.

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Buck Knives folds up production in El Cajon this month for its long-planned move to a new 128,000-square-foot plant in Post Falls, Idaho, near Spokane, Wash. Fifty employees will make the move; 20 will stay in El Cajon, where the 100-year-old, world-renowned company’s marketing and sales will remain. Shipping will move to the Idaho plant in the spring.

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Little Italy residents seeking easier access to a 12-pack of Bud Light, rejoice. The city has approved 7-Eleven Corp.’s request to sell alcoholic beverages from a store at 2003 India St.

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The patented double M-hull design of M Ship Co. will be developed into a demonstration craft with stealth technology under a $6 million Department of Defense contract with the San Diego R&D firm. The design uses bow wave energy to compress the air beneath the hull for improved propulsion, stability, shock mitigation and fuel efficiency. The lightweight carbon-fiber composition increases dynamic lift scalability to launch and retrieve specialized 13-foot craft and operate unmanned vehicles. Specifications for the M-80 Stiletto include an 80-foot length, 40-foot width and accommodations for a 15-member crew. Knight & Carver YachtCenter and SAIC AMSEC will assist.

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The Lodge at Torrey Pines has mined the AAA’s five diamonds for the third year in a row since its opening. The California Craftsman designed and furnished luxury resort, owned and operated by Evans Hotels, remains the only Five Diamond hotel in the city of San Diego.

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Fastec Imaging Corp., a San Diego designer and maker of high-speed portable digital video cameras for industry, has secured a $250,000 loan from the city of San Diego Technology Fund, one of three small-business revolving loan funds from the city Community and Economic Development Department. The others are the $3 million San Diego Regional Revolving Loan Fund providing job-growth capital in partnership with the cities of Chula Vista, National City and Imperial Beach and the $500,000 Metro Revolving Loan Fund for startup capital in lower-income census tracts. The Technology Fund provides capital to tech companies to help attract venture capital.

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The U.S. Army has drafted SeQual Technologies Inc., a Sorrento Valley maker of medical and industrial oxygen systems, to develop and produce a lightweight, rechargeable battery-operated oxygen concentrator by 2005 for both combat casualties and home health care of oxygen dependent patients.

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Pardee Homes has moved its northern Los Angeles area office from Ventura to Valencia. Milo Architecture Group of San Diego created the interior design for the 11,000-square-foot space. Carol Cole was project manager.

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Craig Higgs, a partner at Higgs, Fletcher & Mack, has been inducted as a fellow of the American College of Civil Trial Mediators. The invitation-only nonprofit is a group of professionals distinguished by their experience, skill, ethical standards and professional commitment to mediation, conflict management and alternative dispute resolution. Higgs’ work focuses on mediation, settlement conferences and discovery disputes. He has extensive mediation training, including the advanced mediation workshop at Harvard Law School.

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Summit Performance Group is providing the online hotel and airline registration, transportation and event production services for the inaugural “Road to Recovery Conference and Tribute to Salute America’s Heroes.” Set for Dec. 8-12 at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., it is designed to help and honor 400 seriously wounded and disabled soldiers, airmen and Marines from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as well as their families. Many of these Purple Heart recipients have been hospitalized in Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio and Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. Dick McCann, of San Diego-headquartered Summit Performance, says the conference will bring together experts from a variety of governmental and private agencies in one place, at one time, to teach the disabled veterans and their families how to use and request the benefits due them.

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Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus and chair of the Mozilla Foundation, is the keynote speaker at the third annual Desktop Linux Summit, which focuses on the open source desktop business, Feb. 9-11 at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. The event will feature speakers, demonstrations and panels. The developers of OpenOffice.org and Mozilla/Firefox will be given their own half-day tracks. The cost is $99 per person if registered by Jan. 7, or $175 afterwards. Attendance is limited to 1,000. Sponsorship levels range from $750 to $10,000. To register, visit desktoplinuxsummit.org.

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Barratt Urban Development plans a 122-unit condominium complex, The Paramount, on 4.5 acres at Escondido Boulevard and Woodland Avenue in Escondido. The project will replace an existing bowling alley and restaurant. Residences will start in the high $400,000s. Presales for the two- and three-bedroom complex will begin in the spring onsite. For information, call Cynthia Monaco, v.p. of sales and marketing, at (760) 579-0049.

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Wimmer Yamada and Caughey celebrated 50 years of business in San Diego by hosting a party for more than 200 of its closest friends and clients. It was a double celebration. The landscape architecture firm announced that President Pat Caughey was elected to the American Society of Landscape Architects Council of Fellows. Joe and Liz Yamada were praised for their contributions to the profession and spoke of the company’s rich heritage. The firm was founded in 1954 when Harriett Barnhart Wimmer hired Joe Yamada, a graduate of UC Berkeley. Its projects include Santaluz Golf Course, expansion of the Pechanga Casino, Alga Norte Community Park, Black Mountain Ranch Phase II and Qualcomm campus.

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San Diego’s medical community honored Stanford University School of Medicine professor Gerald M. Reaven with the Ellen Browning Scripps Medal for his research on insulin resistance. The award is named after the woman who helped found Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla. This year’s presentation at Estancia La Jolla Hotel marked the award’s silver anniversary.

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On the 10th anniversary of the United Jewish Federation Men’s Event, the speaker will be Dennis Prager, lecturer, teacher and theologian, who was the speaker at the inaugural event in 1996. The meeting, the largest Jewish men’s fund-raiser convened in San Diego, is Jan. 12 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the Manchester Grand Hyatt. Also appearing will be two Israeli Defense Force speakers. Those attending are asked to make a $200 minimum pledge. Register online at mensevent2005.org or call Donna Daly at (858) 571-3444.

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Pfizer Inc. has purchased its La Jolla pharmaceutical discovery and development campus for $372 million, property it had previously leased from Slough Estates PLC of the United Kingdom. The 33-acre site holds about 1 million square feet of laboratory and office space. The company has invested more than $150 million in improvements during the past three years, says Catherine Mackey, senior v.p. of Pfizer Global Research and Development.

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Award-winning journalist Laura Castaneda will present a 30-minute program on untold stories from San Diego’s border at 2 p.m. on Dec. 12 on the third floor of the main library Downtown.

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Jan Rogers is the new board president of the local chapter of Executive Women International. She represents member firm Francis Parker School. Serving with her and their member firms are Judy Morgan, v.p., Cush Automotive Group; Julie Stewart, secretary, Sempra Energy; Darlene Banogon, treasurer, North Island Credit Union; Bonnie Reiner and Pat Milliken, sergeants-at-arms, Deloitte & Touche and San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, respectively; Sarah Janssen and Penny Coley, ways & means directors, National Multiple Sclerosis Society and San Diego Flowers by Coley, respectively; Margie Wilson and Cindy Tostado, program chairs, San Diego Harbor Excursions and North Island Credit Union, respectively; Gracia Hinesh, publications, San Diego-Union Tribune; and Debbie Wilmot, membership director, Parma Management.

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Appellate attorney David A. Kay has moved his offices back Downtown, taking space on the 18th floor of Symphony Towers. Since the Court of Appeal, 4th Appellate District, Division I is located in the building, it has proven to be a good business decision. “Since most trial attorneys do not have time to fill me in completely before I meet with them, I can now review the papers and transcripts first to see how I can help,” says Kay, who earlier in his career worked Downtown for Appellate Defenders Inc. “I am also a lot more available to meet with busy trial attorneys seeking appellate assistance.”

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The San Diego Boat Show comes to the San Diego Convention Center and Marriott Marina Jan. 6-9. Besides 400 boats priced from less than $100 to more than $2 million, the annual event features free sailing lessons and seminars, yacht tours, boat rides, duck races, marine products and technology. Hours are noon to 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $9 for adults and $4 for children. For more, call (858) 274-9924 or visit sandiegoboatshow.com.

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Scott McGaugh, author of “Midway Magic,” will be at an author discussion and book signing at 6 p.m. Dec. 7 at CCDC’s Downtown Information Center on Broadway Circle facing Horton Plaza. The book, presenting the 47-year odyssey of the USS Midway, the Navy’s longest serving carrier, debuted in June and is about to go into its second printing. “The perfect Christmas present,” says McGaugh.

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San Diegan Jennifer Coburn, author of the chick lit “The Wife Of Riley,” is soon to hit bookstores with her second in the genre, “Reinventing Mona.” While Riley’s main character was the saucy and confused Prudence Malone, who was trying to find a new wife for her husband, the new book is a romantic comedy about a woman who sets out to transform her life, but winds up changing the lives of everyone around her. Amazon.com promises to ship in early January.

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On the shelves just in time for holiday shopping is “Chicken Soup for the Girlfriend’s Soul,” another in the series of Chicken Soup books of heart-warming and uplifting anecdotes, adages and observations. One of the authors of this version is Stephanie Adrian, a freelance writer who lives in Rancho Santa Fe.

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Point Loma Nazarene University has finished its new 17,776-square-foot women’s dormitory, Nease Hall. The building has 50 double rooms on two floors. Each floor also includes two lounges. The building was designed by Milo Architecture Group Inc. Frank O’Brien of MAG was project manager. Taylor Frager was general contractor.

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The 99-cent store, the retail niche that from the ’80s through the ’90s occupied what were the withering storefronts of Centre City’s long-gone merchandising landmarks, continues to bite the dust in the new Downtown. The latest closes at the end of the year at Sixth and Broadway, having followed the redevelopment wave east from Fifth between Broadway and C Street five years ago.

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Taste has opened on University Avenue. The artisan cheese and gourmet shop (1243 1/2 University Ave., (619) 795-0944) offers cheese platters, service and storage items, jams and chutneys, crackers and biscuits and gift baskets. The store’s big cheeses are George and Mary Palmer, who also are the big wheels in cutting customers’ orders directly from their well-rounded stock of cheese wheels.

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Main Street Square L.P., an affiliate of Ramsey Real Estate Group of La Jolla, has sold the 8,550-square-foot, fully leased Main Street Square in Seal Beach to LST Investments for $3.9 million. Main Street represented itself. Ken Trossen of Equity Brokers Inc. of Long Beach represented LST.

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Groundbreaking is set for 10 a.m., Dec. 8, on the new Lincoln High School. San Diego City Schools awarded a $55.6 million contract to Douglas E. Barnhart Inc. for the reconstruction and expansion of the 24-acre campus at 150 S. 49th St. It is the single largest project from Prop. MM, the $1.51 billion bond measure passed by voters in 1998. Lincoln was closed in June 2003 and students were transferred to other schools. The new school is to open in fall 2006 to 2,700 students.

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Besides gathering around the yule log, a yule blog may go just as far in connecting friends and family. A San Diego Web hosting company, basiclink.com, has taken the wraps off giveablog.com for continual, immediate, personal computerized communication (blogging) to share thoughts and experiences. Bloggers get a printable holiday greeting or certificate.

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The 33rd annual Parade of Lights, featuring a festive flotilla of vessels luminous with holiday decorations, gets under way at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 12 and 19. The parade runs leeward from southwest of Harbor Island past Shelter Island and the Embarcadero, coming about at the Convention Center to the Ferry Landing in Coronado. It’s free. The scores of viewing points are priceless.

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Celebrating 10 years of First Night Escondido, participants this year will enjoy 13 stages of music and more than 100 performers at this year’s alcohol-free party from 6 p.m. Dec. 31 to 12:15 a.m. Jan. 1. Activities for all ages will include music, clowns, poets, story-tellers, dancers, puppet-making and fireworks Attendance is $10 in advance, $15 after Dec. 25. To learn more, go to firstnightescondido.com.

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SBC FreedomLink Wi-Fi is now available at the four Barnes & Noble Bookstores in San Diego as part of SBC’s late November rollout of the service to more than 600 Barnes & Nobles nationwide. FreedomLink allows consumers to use laptop computers and personal digital assistants to get online at speeds 50 to 100 times faster than a dial-up connection. Barnes & Noble customers can sign up for a single two-hour session for $3.95. Customers also can sign up for an annual membership with unlimited access to more than 5,000 SBC Wi-Fi hot spots for $19.95 per month. Through an introductory offer, SBC Yahoo DSL customers can receive unlimited access to SBC FreedomLink hot spots at no charge until April 15, and after that pay $1.99 a month with a one-year term commitment. FreedomLink will be in 5,000 locations by year’s end, more than 20,000 by the end of 2005.