Makeover is talk of the ’Town

This attached single-family home in Charlestown has had a complete makeover that opens up the living space and offers great views of the neighborhood's working waterfront.

Completely gutted and renovated last year, the 2,100-square-foot four bedroom home at 56 Belmont St. has three levels of living space, a large rear deck and an attached one-car garage. The house, with a new heating and central air-conditioning system, is on the market for $869,000.

The red brick home with black shutters and white trim was built in 1970, and had been a rental before its makeover.

Granite and paver steps lead up to a leaded-glass front door and into a carpeted foyer. The open living/dining/kitchen space has crown molding and new stained oak floors. There's lots of windows including two three-part picture windows with waterfront views.

The recessed-lit living area features a floor-to-ceiling stone facade wood-burning fireplace with a black slate hearth. There's a door out to a large new fenced-in rear deck with a hot tub.

The dining area, also recessed-lit, leads into a kitchen with brown ceramic tile floors. There are white wood cabinets and veined white granite countertops with a white subway tile backsplash. An island with a breakfast bar seats two.

Stainless-steel appliances include a Frigidaire refrigerator, LG dishwasher, Kitchen Aid compactor and a Kenmore electric stove.

Off the kitchen is a combination half bath and laundry area with beadboard wainscoting and white marble tile floors, a pedestal sink and side-by-side full-size Admiral washer and dryer.

The master bedroom suite has stained oak floors, a double-door closet and an en-suite bathroom with a white marble tile floor and a white marble-topped double-sink vanity. There's a walk-in shower with a white ceramic tile surround, glass doors and handheld and rainhead fixtures.

The three other oak-floored bedrooms are on the small side. Two have views of the Charlestown waterfront. A full bathroom has beige ceramic tile floors, a tiled whirlpool tub and shower and a light brown solid-surface topped vanity.

The basement is newly carpeted, with track lighting, and could be a family play room or a guest bedroom suite, as it has two closets and a full bathroom. The bathroom features a white marble tile floor, a pedestal sink and a walk-in shower with beige ceramic tile surround.

There's a one-car garage, and a driveway have space for a second vehicle. While there are some plantings out front, the home does not have any yard space.

• Address: 56 Belmont St., Charlestown

• Bedrooms: Four

• Bathrooms: Three full, one half

• List price: $869,000

• Square feet: 2,100

• Price per square foot: $414

• Annual taxes: $4,878

• Features: New stained oak floors throughout; living/dining/kitchen area has views of Charlestown's waterfront; floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace facade in living room; granite and stainless-steel kitchen with island; new rear deck with hot tub; master bedroom with en-suite bathroom; carpeted basement suitable for playroom or guest suite; attached one-car garage.

• Location: A mile from retail and restaurants along Main Street in Charlestown and block from offerings along Bunker Hill Avenue where there are T buses to downtown; about a mile to either Sullivan Square or Community College Orange Line stations.

• Built in: 1970; gut renovated 2013

• Broker: Lisa Sheehan of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage at 978-821-4023

Pros:

• Sunny open living/dining/ kitchen area with Charlestown waterfront views

• Large new fenced-in rear deck with hot tub

• Finished basement with full bathroom and two closets

• Attached one-car garage

Cons:

• Three of the bedrooms on the small side

• No yard space

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‘Dynamic’ $hift for Green Monster

Prices for seats and standing-room tickets for Fenway Park's Green Monster will be based on what the market will bear this season.

The Red Sox have adopted so-called "dynamic" pricing for the tickets, which means prices — much like those for airline tickets — will increase or decrease in real time based on demand and market conditions including the date of a game, the opponent and the weather.

The pricing model — a form of which is used by about 80 percent of Major League Baseball teams — is the latest Red Sox move to better align tickets with their market value, according to Red Sox chief operating officer Sam Kennedy.

"There's a lot of research ... that (shows) fans in other markets respond very well to it," he said.

Tickets for the 269 Green Monster seats were $165 last season, and the 150 standing-room tickets were $35. On Tuesday, when the tickets go on sale, initial prices could range from $30 for standing-room to as much as $300 for an Opening

Day seat, the team said.

It has no current plans to expand dynamic pricing to other parts of the ballpark next year, according to Kennedy. "We'll see how it goes and evaluate that middle to end of season or even next off-season," he said. "This is a big shift for us in 2014 for our ticket pricing in general."

The Sox moved to "variable" pricing for the rest of its regular-season tickets this season. Prices were organized into five tiers based on expected demand for each game, but were set in advance of the season. That led to a reduction in average prices for 32 games, according to the team.

The San Francisco Giants was the first MLB team to use dynamic pricing when it started testing it in 2009, according to MLB spokesman Matthew Gould. "Variable (pricing), in some capacity, dates back to at least 2002," he said. "Every MLB club currently does some form of price-shifting."

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Firm to help find cures for children

Although their stories differed in detail, they shared a passion and a purpose no parent would envy: finding a cure for the diseases that afflict — and, in some instances, might one day kill — their children.

At the ribbon-cutting yesterday for Intellimedix, the newest member of the Cambridge biotech cluster, a group of men spoke from personal experience about parent-driven innovation in the high-stakes world of scientific research.

Motivated by his daughter's Dravet syndrome, a severe seizure disorder that doctors told him couldn't be cured, Daniel Fischer co-founded Intellimedix to accelerate the discovery of new drugs, as well as repurpose old ones, to treat neurological diseases. His daughter recently started a new drug and has been seizure-free for a month.

"My advice to parents is don't accept whatever you hear from doctors," he said. "My other message is don't do it alone. You need academia. You need big pharma."

Eleven years ago, Brad Margus learned that two of his sons had a rare, lethal genetic disease that combined a loss of muscle control with cancer and immune deficiency.

While running his company, Margus studied molecular genetics, formed a nonprofit, raised $30 million, set up a clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital and coordinated clinical trials.

"The good news is the science is not really predictable," he said. "A lot of (the breakthroughs) are based on serendipity."

When Harvey Lodish and seven other MIT professors founded Genzyme in 1981, he never imagined that Cerezyme, a drug he helped develop, would one day be used to treat his grandson for Gaucher disease.

"You never know who's going to benefit from what you do in the lab," said Lodish, chairman of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center's Scientific Advisory Board.

Parents, he said, play an "enormous" role in raising money to support early-stage research.

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Jetblue’s NYC-Hyannis service takes off in June

Cape Cod is bracing for an even bigger wave of New Yorkers this year now that JetBlue has announced new daily direct seasonal flights between Hyannis and John F. Kennedy International Airport.

"In summer, New York's our primary market," Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce CEO Wendy Northcross said. "They really like Cape Cod, and they are really willing to jump in the car for five hours to be here. If they can get on an airplane and be here in (56) minutes ... we think that's amazingly important."

JetBlue, which will be Barnstable Municipal Airport's first major carrier, will run the flights on 100-passenger E190s from June 26 to Sept. 9, with one daily flight each way.

It's the airport's first service to a major New York airport since Colgan Air ended its longtime seasonal US Airways Express flights to LaGuardia in 2009. JetBlue partner Cape Air started seasonal flights between Hyannis and White Plains, N.Y., last year and will continue the service.

"For now, (JetBlue is) looking at seasonal to see how the market works out," assistant Barnstable airport manager Frank Sanchez said. "They didn't make a promise, but they want to make it more than seasonal the following year."

The airport has hired a consultant to help attract other commercial airlines, and there have been talks with Colorado's Allegiant and Toronto's Porter Airlines about Hyannis service, according to Northcross.

"The more airlines we can get to Hyannis, the better," said Paul Zuest, managing director of the Chatham Bars Inn. "Our business is New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and the Boston area. That's our bread and butter."

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The Ticker

Flood bill passes Mass. House

The state House of Representatives has unanimously approved a bill aimed at softening the impact of new federal flood insurance rules on many coastal homeowners.

The measure would tie the level of flood insurance that must be purchased to a homeowner's outstanding mortgage balance, rather than the full replacement value of the home. The bill now goes to the Senate.

FTC probing 
Herbalife

The Federal Trade Commission opened a formal investigation into Herbalife's operations yesterday, pushing shares of the nutrition and weight loss company sharply lower.

Shares of Herbalife plunged as much as 
15 percent after being temporarily halted but gradually recovered from lows, ending the day down 7.3 percent. Shares were up more than
4 percent prior to the halt. A circuit breaker also briefly halted trading in shares of rival Nu Skin due to volatility.

Today

 Labor Department releases jobless claims.

 Commerce Department releases retail sales data for February.

 Commerce Department releases business inventories for January.

TOMORROW

 Labor Department releases the Producer Price Index for February.

THE SHUFFLE

Hortensia Roig, general secretary of the Escuela de Empresarios in Valencia, Spain, has joined Berklee College of Music's presidential advisory council. With this appointment, Roig becomes the first Spanish woman to serve on the council.

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Shops focus on race, recovery

Nearly a year after the first bomb exploded in front of Marathon Sports during the 117th Boston Marathon, the Boylston Street store has recovered financially, but emotionally the scars linger.

"That's going to be there for a while," owner Colin Peddie said. "That's something that we're going to have to keep an eye on, especially as we get closer (to next month's race). We're having a big meeting well before the marathon just to make sure everybody's on the same page and if there are any concerns or questions. Other than that, it's a time of reflection."

The retailer's insurer fully covered the loss of business and damage sustained from the blast. And business has been good since.

"For better or worse, (the store) is a destination because we're so close to the marathon finish line," Peddie said. "There's a lot of tourist traffic."

Marathon Sports will be open during this year's race, providing customers with clear shopping bags because of security restrictions. "We want to support what's going on out there," Peddie said. "It's going to be a great day."

Vlora, meanwhile, saw lots of customer support when it reopened after the bombings, but the Boylston Street restaurant lacked the proper insurance to cover its 11-day shutdown and spoiled food. And then a tough winter kept many customers away.

"We ended up closing on snowy days," co-owner Aldo Velaj said. "So I'm really looking forward to the marathon."

Boylston Street candy store Sugar Heaven will be selling "Boston Strong" lollipops and T-shirts during this year's race. Its business is back to normal after an $80,000-$90,000 marathon-related loss that wasn't covered by insurance.

"We're very positive," owner David Sapers said. "We hope people come and … that this catastrophe hasn't shaken (them) to the point where they can't enjoy the marathon."

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Alibaba buying media company ChinaVision for $804M

BEIJING — Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is expanding into media by acquiring control of a Hong Kong film and television company, ChinaVision, for $804 million.

Alibaba Group will buy new shares giving it a 60 percent stake in the TV company, ChinaVision Media Group Ltd. said Wednesday in a statement. Alibaba is allied with two ChinaVision board members whose stake is diluted to about 11 percent from 27 percent.

Alibaba and other Chinese Internet companies are spending heavily to expand beyond their core businesses into instant messaging, games and other areas to compete for China's 618 million Internet users.

ChinaVision produces Chinese-language films and television programs and has a unit that develops content for mobile phones.

Alibaba rival Tencent Holdings Ltd. owns 8 percent of ChinaVision, which will be reduced to 3 percent after additional shares are issued as part of the latest investment, according to the company statement issued through the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Alibaba, based in the eastern city of Hangzhou, near Shanghai, makes most of its revenue from operating online commerce platforms for businesses and consumers. It has expanded into instant messaging, online finance services and other businesses.

___

Alibaba Group: www.alibaba.com

ChinaVision: www.chinavision.hk

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Japan lab weighing retraction of stem cell paper

TOKYO — A Japanese government-funded laboratory said Tuesday it is considering retracting a research paper describing a simple way of turning ordinary cells from mice into stem cells.

The RIKEN Center for Development Biology in Kobe, Japan, has been looking into questions raised over images and wording in the paper, co-authored by lab scientist Haruko Obokata.

RIKEN said Tuesday that it may retract the paper because of credibility and ethics issues, even though an investigation is continuing.

The paper was published in the scientific journal Nature in late January. It was praised as a possible groundbreaking method for growing tissue for treating illnesses such as diabetes and Parkinson's disease using a simple lab treatment.

RIKEN and Nature are investigating allegations including anomalous lines in an image of DNA fragments and a partial plagiarism.

Another author, University of Yamanashi professor Teruhiko Wakayama, said Monday that he believed his part of the research — stem cell production by using the cells provided by Obokata — was appropriate but wanted a third party to run detailed analysis on the stem cells produced. He said he'd rather drop the paper and resubmit it after addressing all questions.

The two scientists were part of a group of researchers, in Boston and Japan, who exposed cells from spleens of newborn mice to a more acidic environment that they're used to. That turned them into stem cells, they said. Cells from other tissue of newborn mice appeared to go through the same change, which could be triggered by exposing cells to any of a variety of stressful situations.

Scientists hope to harness stem cells to replace defective tissue in a wide variety of diseases. By making stem cells from the patient, they can get around the problem of transplant rejection.

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The Ticker

Deutsche unit buys Fort Point buildings

Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management's RREEF America, a division of Deutsche Bank, purchased the buildings at 269-277, 279-283 and 321-325 Summer St. in South Boston's Fort Point Neighborhood for $94.9 million from San Francisco's Spear Street Capital, according to Suffolk County Registry of Deeds documents.

State promotes craft breweries

The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources yesterday unveiled the Massachusetts Craft Brewers Passport to support local brewers. The passport, developed in partnership with the Massachusetts Brewers Guild, promotes more than 60 craft breweries across the state and the local ingredients they use.

The Massachusetts Craft Brewers Passport features a map of the commonwealth, with the locations of local breweries split into five regions. Breweries that use Massachusetts-grown ingredients are indicated with a small tractor icon. At each brewery, visitors can get their passport stamped and when a region is completed, they can receive a free T-shirt.

Sbarro files for bankruptcy again

Sbarro has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization for the second time in just three years as the pizza chain struggles to turn its business around amid a drop in traffic at shopping mall food courts.

The bankruptcy filing yesterday comes after the company shuttered 155 of its U.S. locations last month. The Melville, N.Y., company still has about 800 locations globally, half of those in North America.

Today

 Commerce Department releases wholesale trade inventories for January.

 Labor Department releases job openings and labor turnover survey for January.

TOMORROW

 Treasury releases federal budget for February.

THE SHUFFLE

DLA Piper has announced that lawyers Tim Fuhriman and Stephan Harris have joined the firm's Boston office.

Fuhriman, who is a member of the firm's corporate and securities practice, focuses his practice on assisting companies and investors on a wide range of general corporate and securities matters.

Harris, an associate in the firm's tax practice, advises on the tax aspects of cross-border mergers and acquisition, post-acquisition integration, operational structuring and general international tax planning matters for a range of clients.

Do you have a job announcement or promotion at your company? Send the information along with a photo to bizsmart@bostonherald.com.

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Asian stock market steady after sell-off

BANGKOK — Asian stock markets steadied Tuesday after a sharp sell-off the day before.

There was a dearth of corporate or economic news for traders to digest and an insipid performance on Wall Street gave little direction either.

Most indexes were modestly higher after declining Monday on weak Chinese trade figures that reignited fears of a deeper slowdown in the world's No. 2 economy.

Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average was up 0.5 percent at 15,198.21 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.2 percent to 22,305.20. China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.3 percent to 2,005.31. Markets were also higher in South Korea, Australia and Southeast Asia.

"For the first time in some time traders are choosing to focus much more intently on their local economies," said IG's chief market strategist Chris Weston in a report.

"Asia is focusing predominantly on Asian issues, while Europe keeps a closer watch on developments in the Ukraine, and the U.S. on the narrative from various Fed members."

On Wall Street, the Standard & Poor's 500 index edged down 0.87 of a point to close at 1,877.17. It had been down 11 points earlier.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 34.04 points, or 0.2 percent, to 16,418.68. The Nasdaq composite fell 1.77 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 4,334.45.

The three major U.S. indexes are still up for the month, and only the Dow is down for the year.

Benchmark U.S. crude for April delivery was up 6 cents at $101.18 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.46 to close at $101.12 a barrel Monday.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.3868 from $1.3879 late Monday. The dollar fell to 102.23 yen from 103.26 yen.

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