The recently opened Northfield retail center at Stapleton will mark the holidays with an enormous light display designed by over-the-top lighting guy Carson Williams.
Williams catapulted from obscurity to legend two years ago when he covered his Mason, Ohio, home with 16,000 lights choreographed to twinkle to music by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
Northfield’s management says Williams’ upcoming display, co-designed with New York artist John Carter, will be the largest commercial holiday light show of its kind. The exhibit will span the length of a football field and feature 250,000 lights choreographed to music by – what else? – The Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
Lights will cover two three-story buildings, several trees and light posts. And just in case you’re wondering, it will take more than 1,000 extension cords totaling 30,000 feet and more than 60 miles of electrical wire to power the show.
Free shows will run nightly from 6 to 9, Nov. 18 to Dec. 31.
Virgin Mobile makes phone recycling easy
Virgin Mobile has become the first mobile-phone carrier to provide a recycling envelope with every new handset it sells.
The company said it is distributing more than 2 million postage-paid envelopes in which used phones may be returned. Less than 10 percent of the nation’s 500 million unused phones are recycled, said Virgin Mobile chief executive Dan Schulman.
More information about the company’s recycling program is available at www.virginmo bileusarecycle.com.
They call that speedy drive-through service
Kevin Fritton said he was skeptical that a call center could help fast food restaurants deliver orders even faster until he spent an hour watching a competitor in Colorado.
Fritton, executive vice president of 256 Operating Associates, which runs 14 Wendy’s restaurants in New England and the call center serving them, now considers the marriage of fast-food joints and call centers “the future of the industry.”
To keep lines and money flowing, fast-food chains are routing drive-through calls to remote locations to get more accurate orders and let in-store employees concentrate on making food, keeping the store clean and ringing up sales at the counter. Another plus: Restaurants have cracked down on thefts occurring during late-night shifts when some employees like to give food to friends and pocket the cash without ringing up the order.
Fritton told The Boston Globe he changed his mind about the technology a couple of years ago after sitting in the parking lot of a Colorado McDonald’s that served more than 125 cars during lunch hour. At the time, his restaurants were averaging about 85 cars.
Fritton’s observations in Colorado inspired Wendy’s operators nationwide and transformed the chain into one of speediest deliverers of fast food in the country.
Evacuees get home for the holidays
Money-transfer giant Western Union spun off from parent First Data Corp. in September, but that doesn’t mean the two companies have cut all ties.
Employees for both Colorado companies are helping build a house in Aurora for a family displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Wanda Amar, 38, and her three children – ages 19, 18 and 10 – formerly lived in New Orleans’ devastated 9th Ward.
The family, now living in temporary quarters paid for by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will move into their new house days before Christmas.
The companies’ foundation has donated more than $500,000 to build eight houses in cities where evacuee families have relocated. First Data and Western Union employees donated money, which the companies matched. The foundation raised more than $1.5 million to assist people affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Balm will have you saying, “Mmm, beer”
Beer lovers can now brave the cold with a taste of Oskar Blues Brewery’s Old Chub Scottish- Style Ale clinging to their lips.
The Lyons brewer is selling “Chub Stick,” a lip balm made from malts and hops and an array of moisturizing ingredients. The “small-batch, gourmet lip balm … sports the wonderful malty, chocolatey aromas and flavors of its namesake beer and delivers luxurious (and very tasty) lip protection,” according to the company.
ProLogis warehouses lauded as cutting-edge
It isn’t easy to make warehouse construction interesting, much less hip.
But Denver-based ProLogis, the world’s largest owner, manager and developer of corporate warehouses, is in touch with the times, according to the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts. The association presented the company its “Leader in the Light” award for building warehouse and distribution facilities that are environmentally friendly and energy efficient.
Among the features ProLogis has added to buildings it operates in Asia, Europe and North America are wind turbines, skylights and landscaping irrigation systems that use treated water and recycled rainwater. The company also is making high-efficiency fluorescent lights standard in all of its new U.S. warehouses.
ProLogis, which has $25.3 billion of assets owned, managed and under development, is monitoring the costs and benefits associated the technology and plans to release its findings to the public.
FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
