Northeast Indiana roundup.

• Author: Howey, Brian A.

Automotive, banking and insurance segments of the Northeast Indiana economy have continued to produce headlines during 1993.

All in all, the region seemed to weather the final chapter of the recent recession fairly well, with low unemployment rates and a fair amount of business activity. "It's a very good environment," says Anita Getts, executive director of the Auburn Chamber of Commerce. "Most companies are reporting long hours."

Like last year, banking--as in which bank gobbled up which, or where to house banks or whether there would be a new homegrown bank--tended to capture much of the attention in Fort Wayne and Allen County.

There was to be a new Murphy & Associates building called the INB Center, the major tenant of which was to be INB National Bank. When NBD bought INB in 1992, the future of the five-story office/garage complex in downtown Fort Wayne was left in limbo, because NBD--which earlier had acquired Summit Bank--already was thriving in the city's tallest building.

Enter Norwest, the Minnesota-based regional banking power that purchased troubled Lincoln National Bank earlier in the year. Last summer, developer Murphy & Associates announced that Norwest would become the anchor of the project at Wayne and Calhoun streets, and expanded the plan into an eight-story office center. Other tenants will include the Fort Wayne office of the law firm Baker & Daniels--which will vacate space in the Fort Wayne National Bank building--along with the architectural/engineering firm Schenkel-Schultz and Murphy & Associates.

Norwest's purchase of Lincoln and promised move to the Murphy building left the city's landmark structure--the Lincoln Tower--without an anchor tenant. It also sparked the interest of prospectors seeking to establish a new, locally owned bank. With Norwest gobbling up Lincoln, only Fort Wayne National Bank remained homegrown. But any notion that a new bank would settle in the Lincoln Tower seemed remote, since that site would be much too grand for a start-up enterprise.

Elsewhere in Fort Wayne, construction work at the Phelps Dodge Magnet Wire facility is nearing completion. The multimillion-dollar plan includes renovation of the company's old plant as well as construction of some 80,000 square feet of new office space.

The summer and fall months brought good news--potentially 1,000 new skilled jobs. Aetna announced that it would establish 300 claims-adjuster jobs and support staff at its quarters along Coliseum...