Boston trumps gaming panel

The state gaming commission yesterday scheduled a meeting next month to decide how much sway Boston will have over proposed casinos in Everett and Revere — a move that will delay the awarding of the area's sole license by at least two months.

The Gaming Commission had hoped to award a license by June to either Wynn Resorts, which wants to build a resort casino in Everett, or Mohegan Sun, which has proposed a casino at Suffolk Downs in Revere, but now that decision likely won't come until August. On the advice of its lawyers, the commission decided to solicit public comment before a May 1 meeting, after which it will decide whether Boston is a "host community," a status that would give Hub voters veto-power over the projects.

"We're bending over backwards to give the city a fair opportunity — a very fair opportunity — to make its case," Chairman Stephen Crosby said. "I think it's the right thing to do. But a big price is being paid by a lot of people to try and accommodate the city."

Mayor Martin J. Walsh has argued that the commission has no power under state law to determine whether Boston is a host community. East Boston residents, who rejected a previous casino proposal, should have the opportunity to vote on the Mohegan Sun project, Walsh has argued, and Charlestown residents should have the chance to vote on Wynn's.

In an email last night, Kate Norton, a spokeswoman for Walsh, said: "The city is now evaluating today's response from the gaming commission and exploring the possible next steps in this process."

Richard McGowan, a Boston College professor and gaming expert, said the commission's decision to schedule the May 1 meeting and put off awarding a license for at least two months is a coup for the mayor.

"They could easily have said, 'You're just a surrounding community,' " McGowan said.

It's also a blow, he said, to Revere and Everett.

"Voters in those two communities said yes (to the projects)," McGowan said, "and right now, the mayor of Boston is calling the shots."

In a statement yesterday, Mohegan Sun said: "Our discussions with Mayor Walsh and the city of Boston have been positive, ... and we will continue to work with the gaming commission on the time line they have established."

A spokesman for Wynn had no comment.

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Asian stocks muted ahead of US jobs report

SEOUL, South Korea — Asian stock markets were little changed Friday after the European Central Bank refrained from further easing of monetary policy and investors looked to the upcoming U.S. jobs report for a new trading cue.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 edged up 0.1 percent to 15,091.33 while Seoul's Kospi drifted down 0.1 percent to 1,991.01. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was nearly unchanged at 22,549.74.

Mainland China's Shanghai Composite was up 0.3 percent to 2,049.36 while Australia's S&P ASX/200 was flat at 5,408.70. Stocks in Indonesia were the biggest losers, down 0.6 percent. Other Asian markets were mostly flat.

The U.S. March jobs report will be released early Friday morning in Washington. Many economists think it will show a bounce-back in hiring by employers who held off adding staff during winter.

A strong jobs report would boost confidence that that U.S. economic recovery is on track while also reinforcing expectations that interest rate hikes are in the pipeline after the Federal Reserve ends its bond purchasing program that has provided extraordinary monetary stimulus.

Asia is "a market that is really keen to see a genuine improvement in U.S. data again," IG's Chief Strategist Chris Weston said in a market commentary.

Earlier in Europe, sentiment was mixed after the ECB did not cut interest rates or announce any new stimulus measures, as some had been hoping.

The ECB decided to leave its main interest rate at a record-low 0.25 percent. ECB President Mario Draghi dismissed fears that consumer prices might fall in countries that use the euro common currency, but stressed that the bank was ready to act if inflation remained low.

Germany's DAX closed almost 0.1 percent higher at 9,628.82 while France's CAC 40 rose 0.4 percent to 4,449.33. Britain's FTSE 100 shed 0.2 percent to 6,649.14.

On Wall Street, the Standard & Poor's 500 fell 2.13 points, or 0.1 percent, to 1,888.77. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.45 point, or less than 0.1 percent, to 16,572.55. The Nasdaq composite fell 38.72 points, or 0.9 percent, to 4,237.74.

In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude for May delivery was up 4 cents to $100.32 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract gained 67 cents Thursday to close at $100.29.

The euro fell to $1.3714 from $1.3720 late Thursday. The dollar was steady at 103.91 yen.

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Boston eyes all-star games, Final Four

In a city that celebrates sports, Mayor Martin J. Walsh is creating an office to lobby for high-profile events such as the X Games, professional all-star games and even the Final Four to come to Boston, a move that could bring in big tourism dollars.

"Boston is such a sports town, and (sports) is such a way of attracting tourists," Walsh told the Herald. "I want to use these opportunities for us to capitalize on these tourism dollars."

The Office of Sports, Entertainment and Special Events will operate under John Barros and the city's economic development department. Walsh said he is eyeing events such as the X Games and professional sports all-star games, as well as bringing hockey's Winter Classic back to Boston. Tony Nunziante, acting director of the former Arts, Tourism and Special Events office, will run the new office.

Patrick Moscaritolo, president of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, said sports events can have a significant impact on the economy.

"The major league events, or these huge events like the NCAA Final Four, these are the kinds of things that could really propel the city's industry forward," Moscaritolo said. "That's where you get a lot of spending impact, you get a lot of bang for your buck."

Still, landing the Final Four may be a reach. It's been held in domed football stadiums for at least 10 years, something Boston — or even New England — doesn't have. Boston hosted the Sweet Sixteen in 2012. Moscaritolo said playing host to earlier rounds of the tournament is more likely.

Walsh said a marquee event would not put a strain on the city's amenities.

"We have the hotels, we have the restaurants," Walsh said. "That's the beautiful thing, we have all the infrastructure."

The U.S. Figure Skating Championship was held in Boston in January, and Walsh said attending that event sparked the idea for the sports-focused office.

Next year, the Frozen Four — the NCAA men's hockey tournament — will be held at TD Garden.

Moscaritolo, who has led bids for the Frozen Four and the Women's Final Four, said a focused city office will give the Hub an edge with the leagues and organizations evaluating cities for their high-profile events.

"You rise to the top," Moscaritolo said. "This is a broad, citywide effort that has the mayor's stamp of approval.

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Gaming panel to play hand on host status for Boston

The state Gaming Commission is forging ahead with its plan to rule on whether Boston is a host community to casinos in Revere and Everett after Hub lawyers argued the gaming panel does not have legal standing to make the determination.

"We will proceed with the hearing," commission spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll told the Herald yesterday. "As we have stated previously, the commission has statutory authority to make this decision, and we look forward to resolving this matter quickly."

The commission will discuss a date for the adjudicatory hearing tomorrow, and is sticking with a goal of awarding a casino license in June to either Mohegan Sun's Revere proposal or Wynn Resorts' Everett plan.

Driscoll said the commission has been facilitating information-sharing between the applicants and Boston and hopes to hold a hearing "where everybody will feel like they're prepared with the information that's necessary to support their position."

In a March 25 letter to the commission, city attorney Thomas Frongillo questioned whether the commission had jurisdiction to decide if Boston is a host community. The city is still not entirely on the same page with the commission, asking in a letter Monday for details on tomorrow's discussion, which the commission had said in another letter would include discussion of Boston's status.

"The city requests that the commission provide a more detailed explanation of these statements, which will enable the city to move forward in a thoughtful and productive manner on behalf of its residents including protecting their right to vote," reads the letter by city lawyer Elizabeth Dello Russo.

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Doctors prescribe scribes

Brigham and Women's Hospital is looking to hire medical 
data-entry clerks known as scribes to help doctors spend less time navigating clunky software systems and more time talking to patients.

Brigham already uses a handful of scribes at its Urgent Care Center in Foxboro, which has been welcomed by doctors and patients, according to Dr. Adam Landman, an emergency physician and chief medical information officer at Brigham.

"It lets me sit next to the patient and focus 100 percent of my attention on the patient," Landman said. "There are a few patients who don't want the scribe involved in their care, and then I ask the scribe to leave."

A scribe follows a doctor into a patient visit and takes real-time electronic notes while the doctor and patient talk. A scribe can be particularly helpful in hectic clinics, where health care providers have to move quickly to see lots of patients.

"Scribes allow us, as caregivers, to see and treat patients more efficiently by assisting in the documentation and allowing us to focus on … history-taking, performing exams and medical decision-making," said Dr. Christopher Baugh, who was medical director of Brigham's Urgent Care Center when the scribes were hired.

The growth of modern-day scribes is one way some hospitals and clinics are responding to an environment where doctors by some estimates spend 80 percent of their time clicking and tapping devices and just 20 percent seeing patients. That technology burden is the cause of much dissatisfaction among doctors, according to a recent American Medical Association survey.

Modern-day scribes started becoming popular as electronic health records started replacing paper records.

"The data-entry piece is so time-consuming," said Dr. Michael Murphy, CEO of ScribeAmerica, a Florida-based company that supplies scribes to Brigham and hundreds of other hospitals.

"The physician is basically becoming a data-entry clerk, which is decreasing their productivity. (Scribes) are really a business tool to allow physicians to increase their productivity."

There are about 12,000 scribes across the country, including 3,800 employed by ScribeAmerica, Murphy said. Scribes are rare in Boston's academic medical centers because residents, training to become doctors, often do the work of scribes, he said.

Brigham is working to expand its use of scribes beyond the Urgent Care Center. But that may be a short-term fix, Landman said. The hope is to have an electronic health record system that is so seamless and user-friendly that doctors can use it without sacrificing patient time.

"Do we need to change the way our systems work so that we don't need scribes?" Landman said. "That's the question."

Dr. Keith Dreyer, radiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, indicated at a recent forum on medical technology that it could be many years before that happens.

"It's probably going to take a couple decades before this technology is optimized for user experience," he said. "We're in a frustrated user mode today."

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Travel startup specializes in complex trips

If you're tired of the cold and want to get away to someplace — maybe several places, all on the same trip — a new website offers the kind of one-stop shopping that many travel sites aren't designed to handle.

TripzonTravel.com helps you customize a trip with as many destinations as you like, allowing you to both plan and book multiple flights, hotels, car rentals and activities all on the same site.

"We're like an electronic travel professional for people who prefer to do it on their own," said Tripzon founder Christopher Bensley.

After 20 years of working in the travel industry, Bensley never imagined planning a vacation to Costa Rica for his own family would take him weeks of research.

He had to make transactions on six different websites, and when travel dates had to shift by two days, he found the hotels rooms he'd wanted weren't available, so his search started over.

"I thought, there's got to be a better way," said the 53-year-old Boston native.

So he raised $800,000 from family, friends and angel investors — many of them fellow Dartmouth College alumni. And, with a handful of programmers led by one engineer, he developed three different websites: TripzonTravel for travelers, TripzonPro for travel agents and TahitiJourneys for boutique travel to the South Pacific.

What they all have in common is a web application that puts all the information in one place, allowing for customization and multiple transactions.

What makes them different from the big travel search engines is that they use multiple suppliers and have a trip-building tool that allows you to specify your destinations and then add flights, hotels, car rentals, activities and transfers, Bensley said, or you can modify one of Tripzon's pre-designed trips to suit your preferences.

You also can pay for different parts of a trip at different times. To guarantee availability, for example, you can pay for your hotel rooms far in advance, and then add activities and transfers later.

Last fall, Tripzon was one of the top 26 startups in the MassChallenge accelerator and competition, winning free mentoring and office space in Boston's Innovation District.

To date, the company has booked more than 50 trips and made more than $100,000 in revenue and plans to grow its base of users by partnering with tour operators, cruise lines and event planners, Bensley said.

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Spurned co. seeks rail pact delay

Lawyers for spurned commuter rail operator MBCR yesterday sought a 60-day delay to the contract awarded to Keolis Commuter Services to run the commuter rail system, while MBTA lawyers maintained the bidding process was fair.

The Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co. is arguing that favoritism factored into the eight-year, $2.68 billion contract award to Keolis and said the 60-day injunction would give it time to look for more evidence in MBTA communications.

Judge Mitchell Kaplan took the injunction request under advisement. If granted, the contract takeover set for July 1 would be pushed back to September.

The rail company, which has operated the commuter rail for 12 years, also said the Keolis proposal did not meet minimum requirements, including what lawyers described as a 2-page "promise" of a security plan required under the proposal guidelines.

"MBCR thought it had to submit a plan, not a two-page promise to submit a plan," said David Bodenheimer, a lawyer for MBCR.

"The (request for proposal) is asking for a specific plan."

But MBTA lawyers refuted that claim.

"It acceptably met the stated criteria," Neil McGaraghen, a lawyer for the MBTA, said of Keolis' proposal.

The judge suggested MBCR was exaggerating its claims in the 91-page affidavit it filed in support of the injunction request.

"The affidavit is full of hyperbole, it is full of hearsay," Kaplan said. "Part of me thinks the affidavit was for an audience beyond the court."

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Volvo redefines luxury wagon

The all new 2015 Volvo V60 Sportswagon T5-E is roaring back into the U.S. luxury wagon market with a vengeance.

Don't pooh-pooh the wagon anymore, folks. This car will make a hard run for your driving affections.

The Swedish automaker behind one of the earliest crossovers, the Cross Country, and designers of a long line of wagons delivers another superb vehicle with the V60. Bolstered by a smooth riding, sport-tuned chassis, the car is a nifty combination of style, performance and utility, and this slick wagon handles more like its side- kick the S60 sedan.

The eye-catching slick body lines, angular accents and classically minimalist interior demand your attention. It's such a visual departure from the last wagon, the V70. The moment I slid into the leather-clad driver's seat and grabbed hold of the padded steering wheel, I knew I was in a special car. Add the legendary safety features such as the unibody construction and a low-speed collision-
avoidance system and I think Volvo has a winner.

Let's face it, Volvo has long made solid, good-driving cars and has always had some of the best seats in any car. The ergonomically designed seats are super- comfortable with glove-soft leather, making the driving experience all the better. The controls are right where you need them, but the labeling is not quite as intuitive as you might think. I tended to try to change the radio volume with the cruise speed controller because they looked the same.

The cargo area is pretty good and with the rear seats down it's fairly spacious.

The $35,300 E trim level is the base model that makes 240 horsepower off a 2-liter turbocharged engine. The eight-speed automatic is smooth and the front-wheel drive delivers an estimated 37 miles per gallon on the highway. There's a drop-off to 25 miles per gallon around town, but the roughly 30 mpg average is quite good. To get the all-wheel drive feature you'll have to upgrade to the 2.5-liter in-line 5 turbo or the top of the line luxury R-Spec.

Our $42,225 tester was treated to a couple of upgrades including the $2,550 Premier Plus package, which includes leather, exterior bright work, keyless entry and parking assist. Add the $1,500 Sport Package to dress up the wheels, add paddle shifters and the Blind Spot system to complete the car.

This car will be a real competitor in the luxury wagon category so BMW and Audi should be looking over their shoulders.

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Soon-to-reopen Hubway pedals 10 new stations

In what may be the surest sign yet that spring has arrived, the Hubway bike-share program is set to reopen next week with 10 new stations and new, subsidized memberships for low-income patients of one Boston hospital.

After a year-round Cambridge pilot program that averaged 2,000 trips per week during the winter, nearly 100 of the 140 stations in that city, as well as in Boston, Brookline and Somerville, are expected to be operational by April 2, with most of the remaining ones to be rolled out in early April.

Eight stations that are along the marathon route will be deployed after the April 21 race, said Emily Stapleton, general manager of Alta Bicycle Share, the Oregon-based company Boston hired to run the program in 2011.

Since then, Hubway has logged about 1.6 million trips and 9,700 annual members among the four communities, Stapleton said.

"Mayor (Martin J.) Walsh is thrilled to be reopening Hubway," said Nicole Freedman, the city's director of bicycle programs. "It's really become part of the transportation fabric of Boston."

Two of the 10 new bike stations will be at the Boston Design Center, which is sponsoring them, Stapleton said.

The exact locations of two other new Boston stations and six new Cambridge stations are expected to be announced next month.

Walsh and Boston Medical Center this week also announced the launch of "Prescribe a Bike," a new program that allows BMC doctors to write prescriptions for $5 Hubway annual memberships, which normally cost $85, to low-income residents.

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Former gas co. reborn as luxury apartments

The Arlington is the latest luxury apartment offering to open in Boston, but unlike its competitors' complexes, this is not a new building.

The Park Square rental complex at Arlington Street and Columbus Avenue in Bay Village has been carved out of a 1927 Renaissance Revival building.

Built for the Boston Consolidated Gas Co., it was part of the University of Massachusetts Boston campus in the 1960s and 1970s, and more recently it housed the Boston Renaissance Charter School.

With its limestone facade and two-story arched windows, the building — co-developed by New York's Related Cos. and Boston's Congress Group — cuts an elegant figure. The lobby, once used to display gas stoves, has refinished marble columns and brass detailing along with new white marble floors — and a gas fireplace tucked in one corner.

The $100 million LEED Silver makeover of the 14-story building has created 128 one- and two-bedroom apartments, with rents starting at $3,200 for one-bedrooms and $6,200 for a two-bedroom. Top floor two-bedroom units with 1,600 square feet are renting for more than $8,000 a month.

We took a look at several model apartments. Unit 12G, a 700-square-foot one-bedroom with great Back Bay views rents for $3,700 a month and Unit 12K, a more spacious 900-square-foot one-bedroom with Park Square and downtown views is going for $4,300 a month.

The units have condo-quality finishes, including white-oak hardwood floors, walnut cabinets, polished marble countertops and high-end Kitchen Aid appliances. Bathrooms have white marble floors and white tile tubs and showers. Each unit comes with a stacked Bosch washer and dryer and customized closets

Unlike many of its high-end apartment competitors, The Arlington does not charge monthly fees for pets, and rent includes resident-controlled heat and air conditioning and water. Everything is electric, ironic for a building that was formerly a gas company.

One thing the building doesn't have is parking but tenants can lease garage spaces at the nearby Revere Hotel for $299 a month.

The Arlington has 20,000 square feet of common space amenities. There's a basement basketball court, carved out of a former school auditorium, flanked by a fitness center on one side and a club/game room on the other. There's a second-floor party room and even an on-site pet-washing station.

In May, the Liquid Art House, an upscale hybrid restaurant/art gallery, will open a 180-seat restaurant on the ground floor, which will also provide room service for tenants. There's also Zipcar, bike-sharing and concierge services.

Related says it has leased almost 20 percent of the units. "Renters like the fact that we are closer to Newbury Street, the Theatre District and three blocks from the Public Garden," said Ellen Kang of Related Rentals, who does the leasing at The Arlington.

Kang said the complex is drawing young professionals who work in the area as well as empty-nesters looking for a pied-a-terre in the city.

"The building has a boutique quality as well as a lot of character," Kang said. "I think it will lease up in three to four months."

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