The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "commercial development" ...
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Los Angeles VA Has Made Millions on Rental Deals
This story is about one of the most fought-over pieces of property in Los Angeles, the 400 acre Veterans Affairs Medical Center campus in West Los Angeles. It’s in an affluent neighborhood and has been a target of developers. But with many unused buildings, it’s also been coveted as a place to house some of L.A.’s 8,000 homeless veterans. That was the original use of the land, which was donated for an Old Soldiers’ Home in the late 19th century. The VA has not acted on plans announced in 2007 to begin rehabbing unused buildings there for housing for homeless vets. Meanwhile, it’s rented out land and buildings to commercial enterprises. There is no public accounting for this income. Through FOIA and other documents, we found that the VA is renting out the property using a law intended for sharing health care resources, though the renters are non-health related commercial enterprises. We were also able to estimate that the VA has taken in at least 28 million and possibly more than 40 million dollars over the past dozen years, far more than the cost of re-habbing a building to house homeless vets.
Tags: Property; neighborhood; land uses; veterans
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"Wombs for Rent"
The U.S. is one of the only developed countries that allows surrogacy, though the laws differ across the states. Taking an in-depth look into the world of commercial surrogacy, Habiba Nosheen and Hilke Schellmann find the current system leaves a lot of room for "deceit and fraud." They follow one woman through the surrogacy process and reveal a number of problems, including health insurance fraud.
Tags: surrogacy; SurroGenesis; Tonya Collina; Sarah Jessica Parker
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The buck stops where?
A commercial builder hired to construct a spa failed to conform to architectural plans and building codes, but the county inspector did not detect the failures. When this was discovered, all parties denied responsibility. Inspectors were cited for incompetence.
Tags: building codes; construction; inspection; inspectors; real estate; development; oversight; contractors
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Traffic Congestion on U.S. 1 in Jensen Beach
Traffic congestion on a highly commercializes section of a highway in Jensen Beach was getting progressively worse because elected officials in that county allowed development to continue even though the highway fails to meet county standards for traffic flow. This investigation shows how this happened and what affects it will have on the community of Jensen Beach.
Tags: traffic; construction; commercial development; Florida Department of Transportation
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Battle Acroos
New Jersey Monthly sheds light on the never ending competition between New Jersey and New York in attracting each other's businesses and commercial control over Hudson River. "It seems that whenever a major company threatens to pack its bags, politicians in either state will trip over themselves to find the resources to persuade it to stay," the magazine reports. The story exemplifies the battle for attracting and holding corporate players with a $1.1 billion bond issue, approved by New York governor George Pataki, designed to keep the News York Stock Exchange in lower Manhattan. The article finds that "this economic tug-of-war diminishes both states."
Tags: politicians; Port Authority of New Jersey and New York; Jersey City; public subsidies; corporations; tax abatements; industrial development bonds; Time Warner; Mail.com; America Online; Lockheed Martin; Goldman Sachs; Chase Manhattan
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Hot Property
San Francisco Bay Guardian reports on health hazards posed to prospective residents of a new housing and commercial development planned on the site of a former U.S. Navy base near the city of Alameda. "There's just one problem: it's a toxic disaster area," the story reveals. A major finding is that the Navy may have blasted dangerous levels of radiation into the atmosphere, dumped radium, and spilt uranium and mercury on the base. The article looks at a mysterious case of missing tons of toxins at the base.
Tags: environment; Navy; housing; seabirds; radiation; toxins; safety; cancer; hazardous waste; ecology; pollution; carcinogens
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Would you like decaf with your golden egg? A feud between scientists, bureaucrats and business has cost UH talent -- and BIG money
The University of Hawaii's outdated patent and copyright policies have prevented it from reaping millions in royalties and licensing fees for technologies developed in its labs, Whitney reports. The university stood to profit from two discoveries: the development in its labs of a new mouse-cloning technology, and the creation of a caffeine-free coffee plant. The two leading researchers on the mouse-cloning project, who had won outside fellowships to work on the project, were not asked to make a written assignment of patent rights to UH. After UH tried to claim the rights to the mouse-cloning technology, one of the researchers sued the university. Later, UH announced the development of caffeine-free coffee plants before such plants existed (researchers had to wait until the cloned plants bore fruit). The Wall Street Journal reported that the plants would be available to commercial growers by 2003. In the meantime, ProBio, the company licensing the technology from UH, couldn't make its payments.
Tags: University of Hawaii; technology transfer; licensing; university research; Integrated Coffee Technologies Inc.; Laith Reynolds; ICTI; decaffeinated coffee plants; ProBio; Tony Perry; Teruhiko Wakayama
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Behind the Rings
"For decades, the Olympic movement has promoted itself as the United Nations of Sport, a force for fair play. Then came reports of gift-giving and other corruption in Salt Lake City's bid for the 2002 Olympics." This 7-part series looks behind the commercial "U.N." reputation of the games to reveal disparities in training, facilities and IOC payments between rich nations and developing countries, where athletes may train in 4-year-old running shoes and are given pasta to stave off malnutrition. The IOC raked in $3.65 billion in 1997. The IOC spends $406 million to help countries build their Olympic teams, half of which goes to the U.S. Also looks at the predominantly male and elite membership of IOC, television rights, doping, reforms, loopholes in the reforms, and $100K parties in Rio.
Tags: Olympics; Los Angeles; sponsorship; athletics; sports; IOC; Amateur Athletic Foundation; ISL; NBC; Televison rights; WADA; steriods
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A Fortune Runs Through It
A Phoenix News Times investigation revealed "City of Tempe officials misled the public by stating the cost of construct(ing) a lake in the Salt River bed was $45 million. Careful review of ... city documents revealed the cost of the Rio Salado Project will likely top $200 million.... (and) $1 billion in commercial, retail and residential development that is supposed to go hand in hand with Town Lake is not imminent."
Tags: taxes money Papago Park local government civic project financing
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Center City Commission chief's pay, perks
The Commercial Appeal investigated the Memphis Center City Commission, a taxpayer-funded downtown redevelopment organization. The commission awarded contracts, usually without bids, to members of its five boards. Commission president Ed Armentrout paid personal expenses with the commission's money.
Tags: Resignation; Real Estate; Urban development