Home Depot

About a dozen demonstrators rallied outside the new Home Depot store on Route 70 yesterday afternoon, contending that the home-improvement giant does business with companies that deplete ecologically sensitive parts of forests around the globe. Demanding that Home Depot stop selling products such as cabinetry and lumber made from ancient or "old growth" trees in Southeast Asia, South America and elsewhere, the protesters, mostly undergraduate students from Drexel, the University of Pennsylvania and other schools in the area, hoisted placards and chanted, "Mahogany and cedar, rain forests die by meter.

The Kmart store in Broomall, Delaware County, will close in October and subsequently become a Home Depot store, Kmart said yesterday. Employees do not have guaranteed jobs with Home Depot, Kmart spokesman Steve Pagnani said. Many may seek to fill openings at other area Kmarts, and "it seems likely" that some, based on their experience, would be in a strong position to land jobs at the new store, Pagnani said. The store, next to the Lawrence Park Shopping Center, is one of 13 to 19 nationwide that Kmart, which emerged from bankruptcy last year, is selling to Home Depot.

The first tenant the Rubin Organization signed for its shopping center on the Sears site was Home Depot. While Rubin is demolishing the entire Sears complex for a shopping center, Home Depot touts its role in helping save a historic landmark and tower in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The firm described in its 1993 annual report a situation similar in Tulsa to what happened with the Sears site. In Tulsa, the Warehouse Market, which had been a center of agricultural commerce, had been vacant.

NEW YORK - Consumers might not be confident, but the stores that sell to them certainly seem to be. Wal-Mart and Home Depot, two of the nation's largest retailers and bellwethers of the U.S. economy, on Tuesday joined a string of other merchants that have raised their outlooks for the year despite a flow of bad economic news that suggests they have no reason to be optimistic. TJX Cos., which owns TJ Maxx and Marshall's; Macy's Inc.; Kohl's Corp.; and Nordstrom Inc. have all boosted their profit outlooks in the last week.

Janice Wilmsley held one child in her arms and pushed the other in a stroller through the packed Home Depot parking lot. As she neared the building, she shifted the child from one arm to the other, dropping a newspaper clipping with a Home Depot ad. The ad announced 23 full- and part-time jobs at the new Home Depot, a nationwide home- center chain, at 4640 Roosevelt Blvd. She and approximately 400 others went out yesterday to get applications at the store that's set to open July 27. Wilmsley, 25, is a widowed mother of two who just moved to Philadelphia from New Brunswick, N.J. She said that working at the Home Depot would provide the job security she's seeking.

Lawnside Mayor Michael Bryant signed a temporary permit yesterday allowing Home Depot to continue operating without being fined. The Atlanta-based firm, considered the largest home-improvement retailer in the country, opened its first outlet in South Jersey Oct. 29 without obtaining a mercantile license. The borough, in response, issued the store a summons each day it operated without the license: eight days in all. Each summons carried a potential fine of up to $500, Bryant said.

Major corporations act oddly sometimes. Odd indeed is the recent behavior of Home Depot, the nation's largest hardware and home-improvement chain. Home Depot has announced it does not want to do business with the federal government because it does not want to comply with affirmative-action guidelines. The story, broken by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch last week, indicated that corporate headquarters in Atlanta had directed managers of the 1,400 Home Depot stores not to take take government credit cards, purchase orders, or even cash if the items purchased would be used by the federal government.

For decades, it was a factory, manufacturing chemicals on the city's busy industrial waterfront. Then for many more years, it was an empty lot, with the quiet Delaware River on one side and increasingly decayed Delaware Avenue on the other. Today, the site becomes a mecca for low-budget shoppers. When a mammoth Home Depot warehouse store opens this morning at 1601 S. Columbus Blvd., it will symbolize another step in the evolution of the South Philadelphia waterfront. Since the 1991 opening of Riverview Plaza shopping center at Delaware Avenue (now Columbus Boulevard)

Home-improvement stores selling emergency supplies and coffee shops providing a break from the cleanup may benefit from Hurricane Irene, while department stores shut because of flooding likely lost sales. The storm may have reduced apparel retailers' comparable-store sales by 0.5 percent or less for the month as consumers stayed home during the critical back-to-school shopping season, Jennifer Davis, an analyst at Lazard Capital Markets, said Monday. Grocery stores, drugstores, and big-box retailers likely benefited, she said.

Several Chester County environmental groups have agreed to accept a $30,000 contribution from Home Depot for a regional study of the Valley Creek watershed. In exchange, Home Depot will receive support from the environmental groups for its plan to build a store in Frazer. Officials of two of the environmental groups said Monday they would not have considered the contribution if Home Depot had not agreed to revise its plans involving stormwater runoff into Valley Creek. A small tributary of the 14-mile creek runs through the property on Route 30 where the company wants to build a 114,000-square-foot store and outdoor garden center.

Special Events Annual Tango Festival Featuring workshops, social dances & performances. Ruba Club, 416 Green St. $30-$250. Closes 5/27. Decorate-a-Cupcake Fridays Bakery provides chocolate & vanilla cupcakes, icing & all the toppings to make your own cupcake. Bredenbeck's Bakery & Ice Cream Parlor, 8126 Germantown Ave.; 215-247-7374. Donations accepted; free 12 and under. Germantown White House Exhibits Interactive exhibits featuring George Washington's family & household.

I hadn't done much work on our house recently - at least not anything that would take me regularly to the home centers. This real estate market doesn't inspire major home-improvement projects. Most questions I receive from readers these days focus on how to extend the life of whatever - toilets, sinks, countertops, cabinets, furnaces - so they can defer buying expensive replacements. In my Nov. 14 "Ask Al" online chat, one reader inquired whether it would be wiser to buy a bigger house nearby than to add on to his current house.

Home-improvement stores selling emergency supplies and coffee shops providing a break from the cleanup may benefit from Hurricane Irene, while department stores shut because of flooding likely lost sales. The storm may have reduced apparel retailers' comparable-store sales by 0.5 percent or less for the month as consumers stayed home during the critical back-to-school shopping season, Jennifer Davis, an analyst at Lazard Capital Markets, said Monday. Grocery stores, drugstores, and big-box retailers likely benefited, she said.

NEW YORK - Consumers might not be confident, but the stores that sell to them certainly seem to be. Wal-Mart and Home Depot, two of the nation's largest retailers and bellwethers of the U.S. economy, on Tuesday joined a string of other merchants that have raised their outlooks for the year despite a flow of bad economic news that suggests they have no reason to be optimistic. TJX Cos., which owns TJ Maxx and Marshall's; Macy's Inc.; Kohl's Corp.; and Nordstrom Inc. have all boosted their profit outlooks in the last week.

Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele After the Second World War, returning veterans were welcomed home to two of the most successful government initiatives ever - the FHA and VA housing programs - which put millions of them into their own homes for the first time. Today, later generations of veterans are being confronted by much different housing policies - ones that can toss them out of homes they've bought with their life savings. John Aguiar is a veteran of the Gulf War, a former intelligence analyst for the Army who took part in Operation Desert Storm in 1990 when U.S. forces brought Saddam Hussein to heel after he invaded Kuwait.

NEW YORK - After weeks of worries about the economy pulled stocks down, indexes have risen sharply for two days in a row. The Dow Jones industrial average rose more than 140 points Tuesday, thanks in part to signs that concerns of a global slowdown may be overblown. Quarterly results from Nike Inc. bested analysts' expectations and sent its stock up 10 percent. That helped lead to a rally in stocks of clothing stores, restaurants, and jewelers. Such companies tend to do well when consumers are less worried about things like high gas prices and are willing to spend on themselves.

You can see Chris Stock's work all over the city: A white marble countertop at Earth Bread + Brewery in Mount Airy was once part of the dance floor at the Divine Lorraine Hotel. The Night Kitchen Bakery, in Chestnut Hill, boasts a floor made from new boards - pulled from a Dumpster. Now Stock, whose nine-year-old company, the Stock Group, uses reclaimed materials to renovate Philadelphia homes and businesses, is offering his treasure trove of flooring, tile, and architectural details in a new Mount Airy store.

In May 2002, after Michael and Crystal Rocke were married on the beach in Hawaii, Michael carried his bride over the threshold of their Overbrook home. The gesture was unforgettable - and so, unfortunately, was the house. The roof leaked, nails protruded from the warped floors, the walls were dingy. Spiders were everywhere. "It was like the movie Arachnophobia ," says Crystal. "I literally cried for about eight months. For me, it was like the sitcom Green Acres , except we were living in the city of Philadelphia.

Between busy retail anchors at each end of Cherry Hill's Garden State Pavilions sits a long line of empty storefronts. The center has been in decline for several years, squeezed by a poor economy and competition from the nearby Garden State Park shopping development. The property at Route 70 and Cornell Avenue will be auctioned Aug. 17. Tenants say they hope for a revival, but they are keeping their optimism in check. Bank of America, serving as trustee for a mortgage loan pool that included the center, foreclosed on the property in May 2009.