The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • 37

-A OHI UlOO OBITUARIES RELIGION LIVING TELEVISION 6 8 9 10 THE RECORD FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 1993 SECTION LI Growth IE W7H 1 Uu Vai A LfA LJ 'w "'f "1 i A.V it. VVVX 'X 'J BMW's plan to build a non-union N.J.'S 'light beer' recovery Builders told it's not too filling By WARREN E0S0S0N Record Staff Writer ATLANTIC CITY The good news is that the housing recovery is real, economist Todd Zimmerman told the New Jersey Builders Association Thursday. "The bad news," he went on, is that the recovery is more more tepid than most people expected. James Hughes, professor of urban planning and policy development at Rutgers University, told the builders group that with normal job growth the state will need until 1998 or 1999 to recapture all the jobs it lost in the past few years. Hughes called state's recession a "Texas-sized one," which has cost the state half of the jobs that were created in the prosperous 1980s.

"It's going to be a long road back." He characterized the recovery as a "light-beer recovery, not too filling." In 1992, there were more than 18,000 housing permits, Hughes said, 22 percent more than in 1991 but only one-third of the permits in 1986. Because of overbuilding, Hughes predicted commercial property won't be in demand until 1999 or so. In just seven years during the Eighties, he said, 80 per- i cent of all rental properties ever built in the state were constructed. In one respect, Zimmerman, who runs a real estate consulting firm in Clinton, was more optimistic than Hughes: He thinks that the people born during the Sixties baby bust will be unusually wealthy, so they may be able to buy more houses during the remainder of the decade than demographers have predicted. While David Seiders, chief economist of the National Association of Home Builders in Washington, agreed that the recovery was "grudging," he seemed the most optimistic.

Seiders was "very positive" that interest rates would stay low or go lower. He predicted that builders, who have been having trouble getting credit, would find the faucet opening more. And he believes President Clinton's economic package will be passed and will stimulate the economy although it may cause another reces- See BUILDERS Page C-2 PETER MONSEESTHE RECORD plant in South Carolina drew protesters Thursday to its US. headquarters in Woodcliff Lake. Thousands stage protest outside BMW headquarters Mercedes-Benz may be next to make cars in the South reports show But analysts say recovery is safe By JCXN D.

McCLAIN The Associated Press WASHINGTON A trio of reports Thursday on jobs, building, and manufacturing gave fresh evidence that the economy has slowed from its rapid year-end acceleration. The government said jobless claims unexpectedly jumped a week ago and that construction spending remained anemic in February. A business survey suggested that industrial activity slowed last month. Samuel D. Kahan, an economist with Fuji Securities in Chicago, portrayed the national economic expansion as a "steak without any sizzle." But he said there was no danger of its ending soon.

"The economy has turned the comer and has become self-feeding," Kahan said. He estimated that it would continue to grow at a rate of between 2 percent and 2.5 percent until midyear and then increase to about 3 percent. Economist Sung Won Sohn of the Norwest Corp. in Minneapolis said the slower growth in the first quarter has been "a welcome phenomenon because the nation cannot afford a spending spree given the heavy debt burden on the part of consumers and businesses." But, Sohn added, "the risk is that the slowdown could turn into a dip, which happened in 1990, 1991, and 1992." The Labor report showed that 380,000 newly laid-off workers filed applications for unemployment insurance during the week ended March 27, the most since 382,000 filed during the week ended Nov. 7.

Analysts said the size of the increase was probably due in part to the mid-March blizzard. The storm closed many unemployment offices, forcing many applicants to postpone their claims, and caused parts shortages, triggering some plant closings. Still, most analysts said the recent trend in claims portends just modest job creation and predicted a sharp cutback in the payroll growth that had totaled 365,000 in February. "I'm looking for 120,000 for March," Sohn said of the employment report to be released by the Labor Department today. "That is consistent with the modest economic growth that we're talking about." The National Association of Purchasing Management said a survey of its members found the manufacturing economy continuing to grow in March, but at a slower pace than in January and February.

However, the survey component measuring employment dropped slightly in March, which analysts said reinforced the weak job-growth picture. The Commerce Department, meanwhile, reported that construction spending inched up just 0.1 percent in February after falling 0.5 percent a month earlier. By PATRICK McGEEHAN Record Staff Writer MW apparently isn't the only New Jersey-based auto importer that plans to start building cars in a Southern state. Another German luxury-car maker, Mercedes-Benz, said it will make a "significant" announcement Monday. Industry observers expect it to reveal the future site of a manufacturing plant.

Speculation has focused on North Carolina, where a Mercedes-Benz subsidiary has two truck factories, and on South Carolina, where BMW is building a factory. Mercedes-Benz isn't saying. A spokeswoman for the company's Montvale-based U.S. operations would repeat only what company officials have already said: Mercedes-Benz is AX-- mw 1- considering sites in the United States, Portugal, and Eastern Europe. South Carolina "has some interesting advantages" for a company wanting to build an auto factory, said Thomas O'Grady, president of Integrated Automotive Resources Inc.

in Newark, Del. Those advantages include lower costs for land, construction, and labor, and a lack of union representation. But, he added, Mercedes-Benz might save the cost of building a factory by buying a plant abandoned by General Motors which has been shedding plants in a program of drastic cost cuts. One thing that's certain, O'Grady said, is that the company won't build a factory in an industrialized northern state like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or Michigan. See MERCEDES-BENZ Page C-2 and all the people involved should be commended." A theater at this kind of location is more important to the community than to Loews, since all profits are going back to the Urban Movie Corp.

for neighborhood projects. "We're not going to do these to the exclusion of our bread and butter business," Loeks said, referring to the chain's 890 screens in 183 locations, most of them along highways. See MOVIES Page C-2 Hogan Marvel now lay out, draw, paint, and shoot virtually all their TV cartoons abroad, especially in Asia. "The Simpsons" is drawn in Seoul, South Korea. Most of a recent cartoon version of "The Wizard of Oz" was produced in Shenzhen, China.

"The Flintstones" hails from Manila. "Winnie the Pooh" is painted in Taipei, Taiwan. "Teen-Age Mutant Ninja IN THE U.S.A. "I think it's a disgrace, said John O'Connor, a member of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association who traveled from Washington, D.C., to join the rally by the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO. "They're all union over in Germany, why can't they be here?" Charles Marciante, president of the New Jersey chapter of the AFL-CIO, said about 5,000 union members were bused to the rally from New York and New Jersey locals.

Some police officers estimated that as many as 3,000 protesters were on hand. "The trade union movement and you are capable of standing up to this company that has put wages back 50 years," Marciante said to demonstrators' cheers of See BW Page C-2 Theatre Management a subsidiary of the Sony Pictures Entertainment Co. "I think it is going to be very successful and could become a blueprint for other urban areas, where private business might not make the investment this kind of project takes," said Barrie Lawson Loeks, co-chairman of Loews with her husband, Jim. A theater helps bring the community back to the downtown area, she said, bringing immediate benefits to the area. "A manufacturer might provide 1 Movies for the family return to downtown Newark By KAKLEE LCSCBA BRAISE Record Staff Writer arrying small American flags and signs proclaiming "BMW: Don't Dump on America," thousands of unionists on Thursday rallied outside BMW's American headquarters in a protest against the automaker's plans to build a non-union plant in the South.

The unions that came to Woodcliflf Lake are worried that their exclusion from the building of the German automaker's plant in Greer, S.C., is part of a trend by foreign companies to keep organized labor out of the workplace. They're also concerned that BMW will pay auto workers in South Carolina much less than their unionized counterparts make in Germany and elsewhere in the United States. Nine months after groundbreaking ceremonies on a site ravaged by the 1967 riots, the sparkling $5.3 million glass- and brick-faced Loews Newark Metroplex opens its doors to the public at noon today. The six-screen theater, on a four-acre lot at Springfield Ave. and Bergen was developed by the Urban Movie a nonprofit corporation established in 1990 to build and operate a community-run theater.

It is operated under a long-term management contract by Secaucus-based Loews DOW 3,439.44 up 4.33 SCO 450.30 down 1.37 422.77 down 0.66 NASDAQ 686.64 down 3.49 BONDS iO-ymr Tras. 6.96 up 0.03 DOLLAR 1 14.04 yen down 0.71 yen the into Briefly NYSE Amex more jobs, but most people in the community don't understand how that benefits them," said Loeks. "A theater provides fun, entertainment." Loeks said other cities have approached her about similar ventures, but that nothing is finalized. "So many cities are perceiving the need for entertainment, the need for nightlife." Such projects can succeed, she said, "where you have a committed group of citizens. This takes lots of hard work and financial risk; it's not easy to do.

The mayor Cartoon celebrities leave U.S. By KEVIN G. DeMARRAIS Record Staff Writer Walt Disney's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and Burt Reynolds' "Cop and a Half represent a big change from the porn flicks that have come to define moviegoing in America's inner cities. But those two hot new films are among six opening in a new six-screen theater in Newark today, the result of an unusual publicprivate partnership that could become a blueprint for similar ventures. 0 David Henke had a marketing degree and a way with snacks.

As head of Popcorn Explosion in Hawthorne, he was king of the exotic kernel. Then ne declared bankruptcy, and now ex-employees, suppliers, and the IRS are crying foul. Round table: In today's debate, will Clinton, environmentalists, and the lumber industry be able to see forest for the trees? See C-3 Low in the saddle: Western Union's parent rides Bankruptcy Court. See C-3 Makes cents: Try our weekly money-rate charts. See C-3 Studios are moving production abroad Los Angeles Times News Service MANILA, Philippines One of California's most beloved industries has all but picked up and quietly moved overseas in yet another blow to the American way of life.

Forget silicon chips and video-cassette recorders. We're talking Fred and Wilma Flintstone, Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear, and scores of other classic cartoon characters that populate the screens of millions of TVs on Saturday mornings and amuse adults and children around the world. Although their scripts, story-boards, voice tracks, and other pre-production work are still done in Hollywood, America's cartoon titans Hanna-Barbera, Walt Disney, Wamer Fox, and Turtles" is made in Dublin, Ire-; land. Other familiar cartoons come from Japan, Australia France, and Spain. There are two reasons: After a two-decade lull that lasted until the mid-Eighties, animation is enjoying a resurgence.

There are after-school shows, prime-time series, hourlong specials, full-length features, and best-selling videos. There are superheroes and dinosaurs, fairy tales and bedtime stories, "wascally wabbits" and "puddy tats." There's even a 24-hour cartoon channel on cable TV. There just aren't enough trained artists and animators in Los Angeles to supply the millions of draw-! ings required. A single cartoon; minute requires about 1,200 separate drawings, or "cells," most still done by hand. "The demand for the shows is so See CARTOONS Page C-3 NASDAQ National Mutual Funds fC-3 IC-4.