Baker Chocolate complex has sweet condos

If you're looking for an alternative to the Hub's astro­nomical condo prices, you may want to stop looking along the Charles River and set your sights on the Neponset.

The Baker Chocolate complex, a 14-acre village of brick factory buildings along the Neponset River in Dorchester's Lower Mills, has some new high-end condos that start at just $450,000. Owners have access to an indoor lap pool with a hot tub, a fitness facility, a conference room and a dog park. Units come with deeded parking out back and condo fees include heat.

The Lofts at Lower Mills were transformed into one- and two-bedroom market-­rate apartments with historic preservation tax credits five years ago, and now Hub owner Winn­ Develop­ment has been converting them to condos as the credits expire.

Three buildings are being transitioned into 77 condos, with 58 of them in a six-story Romanesque Revival building built in 1891 and known as the Baker Mill. The developer is adding hardwood floors, some updated appliances, and even opening up some unused loft spaces on the top floor.

The condos have 13-to- 18A-foot-high wood-beam ceilings, tall windows, exposed brick walls and lots of original detailing.

We took a look at model Unit B-601, a 2,000-square-foot one-bedroom-plus duplex that's on the market for $660,000. The sixth-floor unit's living room has soaring 18A-foot ceilings and a large multipart arched window that overlooks the river. Its one bedroom, reachable by a newly added steel and wood staircase, is a remarkably large 750 square feet. The unit has two full bathrooms with glass-enclosed showers and a soaking tub, an in-unit washer/dryer, a dining room/den space and an open kitchen with quartz countertops, wood cabinets and stainless-steel appliances.

The Baker complex is within a short walking distance of Dorchester's Lower Mills retail area and Milton Village just across the Neponset, but it feels self-contained. Out back there's the picturesque Baker Dam and you can connect with Neponset River Walk that leads down to the Pope John XXIII park. There's a Red Line trolley stop to Ashmont just across the street, making for an easy city commute.

"It's got a neighborhood feel, and it's affordable," said Jonathan Keith of Keith Brokerage in Canton, who is exclusively marketing the units. The building was rehabbed into apartments by his family's construction company.

Condo fees range from $600-$900 a month, and include gas heat from a central system. Owners also get access to the complex's renovated lap pool and fitness facility.

"We're attracting a lot more empty nester buyers than we thought we would," said Keith, who said 32 units have closed. "We're getting people from suburbs like Hingham and Cohasset who want to be close to the South Shore but are looking for a city feel. The complex has really developed into a friendly neighborhood with a great mix of people."

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Hack at JPMorgan Chase hits 76M

JPMorgan Chase admitted yesterday that hackers stole customer information in a stunning cyberattack affecting 76 million households and 7 million businesses — a huge data security failure that experts said will only become more frequent.

"This is something that really, really presents a serious threat, and this could be just the tip of the iceberg," Steve Weisman of Bentley University told the Herald. "Before, it was just retailers. Now you're dealing with banks who generally have been better at protecting their security. It's open season now."

The huge data breach was carried out as early as June, but not discovered until mid-August, said spokeswoman Patricia Wexler. Hackers stole customers' names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses from the company's servers, but more sensitive information, such as bank account numbers, Social Security numbers and passwords were not involved, JPMorgan said.

"We have identified and closed the known access paths," Wexler said.

Anthony Roman of the risk management firm Roman & Associates said it is possible that corporate secrets — including upcoming mergers and acquisitions — could also have been accessed, depending on what systems were breached.

"This isn't a new trend," said Roman. "This is an existing pattern that we think is going to expand. The hackers are capitalizing on fundamental weaknesses in corporate computer security."

Brian Krebs of 
KrebsOnSecurity.com said the length of time the hackers went undetected by JPMorgan is alarming, calling into question whether they plundered more than just customer information.

"It's entirely possible the bad guys weren't even after the information, they were after something else," said Krebs. "If they have a month inside your network and they have time to cover their tracks, it could be difficult to find out what they touched."

The JPMorgan data breach comes on the heels of other extensive security lapses at major corporations, including Target and Home Depot.

"We are very sorry that this happened and for any uncertainty this may cause you," JPMorgan said in a message to customers on its website. "There are always lessons to be learned, and we will learn from this one and use that knowledge to make our defenses even stronger."

Herald wire services contributed to this report.

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Trader accused of manipulating commodity prices

CHICAGO — A New Jersey high-frequency trader was accused of manipulating commodity prices by sending false signals to the market and then executing trades within milliseconds to make huge profits, prosecutors said Thursday, in what they described as a first-of-its-kind prosecution.

Michael Coscia, 52, was indicted for illegally earning around $1.5 million through the Chicago-based CME Group — the world's largest operator of futures exchanges — and European futures markets in 2011. The U.S. attorney's office in Chicago said it's the first case under major changes to federal commodities law in 2010, when Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms after the financial crisis.

High-frequency trading was the subject of Michael Lewis' best-selling book "Flash Boys," which chronicled how Wall Street traders sought profits and a jump on competitors through ever-faster computer systems down to fractions of a second. Powerful computers analyze market information and then execute buy and sell orders within milliseconds, or thousandths of a second. The practice has come under increasing scrutiny, with the FBI confirming earlier this year that it had been investigating such firms.

Critics argue that it can lead to wild swings in the market and unfair advantages for companies with faster computers.

"Traders and investors deserve a level playing field," U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois Zachary Fardon said in a statement announcing the indictment by a grand jury in Chicago.

The 19-page document includes timelines broken into the precise milliseconds Coscia allegedly executed each stage of the fraudulent trades. At 9:39 a.m. on Sept. 2, 2011, for instance, he made $560 on gold futures in under a second after artificially bumping up the market price with an order that he cancelled within milliseconds, the indictment says. Coscia allegedly engaged in similar trades hundreds of times, including for soybean oil and copper.

The goal was "to trick other traders into reacting to the false price and volume information he created with his fraudulent and misleading quote orders" that "appeared to represent a substantial change in the market," the indictment alleges.

Coscia, a registered commodities trader since 1988, faces six counts each of commodities fraud and "spoofing," which refers to signaling that an order is being placed without intending to follow through. If convicted, he could face decades in prison.

His attorney, Richard T. Reibman, told The Associated Press that he is "discussing the matter" with prosecutors. He declined further comment.

Coscia has come under scrutiny before. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission last year accused him and his New Jersey trading firm, Panther Energy Trading, of manipulating markets through allegedly placing orders that it never planned on executing. The federal regulator fined the company $2.8 million for "spoofing" trades and banned the firm from trading for one year. Panther Energy Trading settled with the CFTC without admitting or denying the allegations.

High-frequency trading now accounts for a large percentage of U.S. stock trading. But the practice began to come under intense public scrutiny following the "flash crash" of May 6, 2010, when a glitch erased 600 points from the Dow Jones industrial average in five minutes.

The CME Group owns the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade, the New York Mercantile Exchange and exchanges that trade futures on gold and other metals, as well as agricultural products including cocoa, soybeans and corn.

A spokesman for the CME Group in Chicago, Chris Grams, declined any comment on Coscia's indictment.

___

Follow Michael Tarm on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mtarm

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State to highlight areas seeking development

State officials have teamed up with cities and towns in Greater Boston to put together a list of developer-friendly neighborhoods and parcels, a move being applauded by a local development association.

"Developers would find life a lot easier if you just told them in advance, here are some places in communities (that) would like to get stuff built," said Greg Bialecki, the state secretary of housing and economic development. "(In the past) we have not been open and transparent about where we want things and where we don't want things."

Yesterday, the state released a list of 12 "Priority Development Areas" where cities in Greater Boston have said they would welcome new construction. The areas include Sullivan Square, Revere Beach, downtown Malden and the East Boston waterfront. The state also listed 13 areas that the cities are actively trying to preserve and don't want to be redeveloped.

"We can convey a message to the development community," Bialecki said. "If you want to build something in Massachusetts, here's a number of communities saying we want stuff."

The state has been working with communities statewide over the past few months to develop similar lists.

"It's always an advantage to understand the municipality's interest in the use of the property," said David Begelfer, CEO of NAIOP Massachusetts, a real estate development association. "It could be a real benefit and a real win-win."

Bialecki said the priority development areas also are places the state has identified as targets for investment in infrastructure, from public transit improvements to increased sewer capacity.

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The Ticker

AG asks DPU to ease electric rate hikes

With significantly higher heating prices expected this winter, Attorney General Martha Coakley has asked the Department of Utilities to help mitigate electricity "rate shock" to consumers and open an investigation into ways to reduce these sudden spikes. The AG's office is also requesting a one-month extension to the state's winter moratorium, banning companies from shutting off electric or gas supplies to consumers struggling to pay their heating bills.

The AG's office asked the DPU to work with National Grid to determine what part of the cost recovery of the winter rates, if any, may be deferred until after May 1, 2015.

Last month, National Grid filed its basic service rates and warned that, due to higher power supply prices, typical residential customers will see an increase from last year on their winter electric bills of 
37 percent, or about $33, each month from Nov. 1 to April 30, 2015. The DPU approved the filing Sept. 23.

Don Law buys Somerville post office

The city of Somerville has been informed that the U.S. Postal Service has completed the sale of the former Union Square Post Office at 237 Washington St. to Boston arts and entertainment promoter Don Law for $2.75 million. Asked about his plans for the facility, the Live Nation impresario told the Herald, "I honestly don't really have one, and I'm not being coy; we just don't know exactly what it will be. But I love the building. And I know food will be a major component."

Apartments proposed in Brighton

Allston-based Partners Properties LLC gave notice to the city yesterday of its intention to redevelop an "underutilized," six-story office building at 1505 Commonwealth Ave. in Brighton into an 85-unit apartment building with parking for 74 cars. The company plans substantial exterior improvements to the building and wants to add an 8,000-square-foot addition over the existing parking deck. It bought the property for 
$7.45 million in June, according to documents filed with the Registry of Deeds.

TODAY

• Labor Department releases employment data for September.
• Commerce Department releases international trade data for August.
• JLL Capital Markets announced that George Gregory, left, has joined the firm's Boston office as an associate focusing on underwriting and analysis across all property types, performing valuations and other market studies. Previously Gregory was an account and project manager for six years at Triumvirate Environmental Inc., where he specialized in the sale of environmental services to the life sciences industry.

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Wayfair has way good IPO

Shares of Boston-based online home furnishings retailer Wayfair gained as much as 35.9 percent yesterday in its first day of trading as a public company.

Wayfair's $319 million initial public offering ranks as the eighth largest U.S.-listed Internet-related IPO this year.

"We're excited to see it open so strong, and we were really happy ... we were able to price it above the range," CEO Niraj Shah, 40, said yesterday from New York, where he and co-founder and CTO Steve Conine, 42, rang the New York Stock Exchange opening bell. "Investors, we think, were really able to understand the opportunity at Wayfair and how well-positioned we are."

Wayfair's stock closed at $37.72 yesterday, up 
30 percent from the $29 offer price set Wednesday, which exceeded the company's expected $25 to $28 range. That first-day "pop" compares to an average of 13 percent for U.S.-listed IPOs this year and 26 percent for U.S.-listed Internet-related IPOs, according to New York IPO tracker Dealogic.

The 12-year-old Wayfair offers more than 7 million products, shipping most directly from distributors, through websites including Wayfair, Dwell Studio and Birch Lane and online flash sales site Joss & Main.

Investor meetings in the past couple of weeks prompted Wayfair to raise its initial offering price, according to Shah. "We met some great long-term-minded investors and saw that there was significant interest in being a Wayfair shareholder," he said. "Home (furnishings) is a very big market. It's growing nicely online, and ... Wayfair ... is growing at a significant multiple of that. That combination really makes us feel like ... Wayfair is in a really great spot."

Wayfair will use the bulk of its IPO proceeds primarily to bolster its balance sheet. "It's not necessarily earmarked for any special spending plans," Shah said. "It will put us in a great position to be flexible and take advantage of any opportunities we see over time. Our primary focus is growing the business."

The company went from 2.1 million active customers at the end of last year to 
2.6 million six months later. "We do a lot of brand-building using television primarily and ... we do a lot of online advertising," Shah said.

But Wayfair has yet to be profitable. While its revenue grew almost 50 percent in the first half of the year to $574.1 million, it lost 
$51.4 million, primarily due to its increased spending on advertising.

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JPMorgan breach heightens data security doubts

LOS ANGELES — New details on a cyberattack against JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s computer servers this summer add to increasing doubts over the security of consumer data kept by lenders, retailers and others.

The New York-based bank disclosed Thursday that the breach compromised customer information pertaining to roughly 76 million households and 7 million small businesses.

Among the customer data stolen were names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses, though only customers who use the websites Chase.com and JPMorganOnline and the apps ChaseMobile and JPMorgan Mobile were affected, the bank said.

JPMorgan stressed that there's no evidence that the data breach included account numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers or dates of birth. It also noted that it has not seen any unusual customer fraud stemming from the data breach.

The server breach follows data thefts that have hit financial firms and major retailers this year, adding to consumer concerns over the risk of identity theft and fraud.

The Chase heist is even more disturbing than the recent retail breaches because banks are supposed to have fortress-like protection against intruders, said Gartner security analyst Avivah Litan.

"This is really a slap in the face of the American financial services system," Litan said. "Honestly, this is a crisis point."

JPMorgan Chase, the nation's biggest bank by assets, has been working with law enforcement officials to investigate the cyberattack.

The bank discovered the intrusion on its servers in mid-August and has since determined that the breach began as early as June, spokeswoman Patricia Wexler said.

"We have identified and closed the known access paths," she said, declining to elaborate.

She also declined to comment on whether JPMorgan has been able to determine who was behind the cyberattack on its servers.

In response to the data breach, the company has disabled compromised accounts and reset passwords of all its technology employees, Wexler said.

In a post on its Chase.com website, the bank told customers that it doesn't believe they need to change their password or account information. It also noted that customers are not liable for unauthorized transactions when they promptly alert the bank.

The breach is yet another in a series of data thefts that have hit financial firms and major retailers.

Last month, Home Depot said that malicious software lurking in its check-out terminals between April and September affected 56 million debit and credit cards. Michaels and Neiman Marcus also have been attacked by hackers in the past year.

A data breach at Target in December compromised 40 million credit and debit cards. TJX Cos.'s theft of 90 million records, disclosed in 2007, remains the largest data breach at a retailer.

Chase's assurances that it hasn't found any evidence of the personal data being misused shouldn't be misinterpreted as a reason to rest easy. The information still could be used in a variety of ways to rip off people in the months and years ahead.

That means consumers and business owners need to be more vigilant than ever, making sure to pore over their financial statements each month for any sign of suspicious activity. People also should be more leery than ever of unsolicited phone calls from purported bank representatives, emails fishing for their financial information and even uninvited guests knocking at their doors.

"You have to be paranoid now. You can't slack off," Litan said. "There is no such thing as data confidentiality anymore. Everything is out there."

Jamie Dimon, the bank's CEO, said in this year's annual report that despite spending millions on cybersecurity, JPMorgan remained worried about the threat of attacks. By the end of this year, the bank estimates that it will be spending about $250 million annually on cybersecurity and employing 1,000 people in the area.

In August, the FBI said that it was working with the Secret Service to determine the scope of recent cyber attacks against several American financial institutions.

Last month, JPMorgan began notifying customers that it would reissue credit or debit cards in the wake of the data breach at Home Depot. Wexler said the bank doesn't plan to reissue cards as a result of the breach of its servers, noting that customer account information was not stolen.

____

AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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Company proposes a safer Zohydro to FDA

The maker of the controversial painkiller Zohydro is seeking federal approval of a harder-to-abuse version, but its lawsuit against the state is "ongoing," even though a judge struck down Massachusetts' ban of the drug and some of the subsequent restrictions the state put on it.

San Diego-based Zogenix said it has submitted a supplemental application to the Food and Drug Administration for a new form of Zohydro extended-release capsules that is more difficult to snort or inject. If it is approved, as the company expects, in the first quarter of 2015, the drugmaker would replace the current version of Zohydro in the second quarter.

The company still, however, is challenging U.S. District Judge Rya W. Zobel's July 8 decision upholding a state Board of Registration in Pharmacy regulation requiring that only pharmacists handle Zohydro in a drug store.

"That legal action is ongoing in federal court, and the company will provide additional updates as it moves through the process," Zogenix said yesterday in a statement.

A hearing on the company's complaint is expected in December.

"Our office has urged the FDA as well as manufacturers to make abuse-resistant and tamper-resistant formulations of their drugs, especially potent opioids," Christopher Loh, a spokesman for Attorney General Martha Coakley, said in a statement yesterday. "That continues to be an important tool in the fight against abuse and a minimum safeguard that should be employed by manufacturers of painkillers."

The FDA approved Zohydro last October. But in late March, Gov. Deval Patrick declared a public health emergency because of a growing number of opiate overdoses and banned the prescription and sale of hydrocone-only drugs, of which Zohydro is the only one.

The company sued, arguing that it was being singled out unfairly, and in April, Zobel lifted the ban. Within days, the boards of registration in medicine and pharmacy and the Board of Registration of Physicians Assistants passed regulations placing restrictions on how the drug could be prescribed and sold.

In July, Zobel struck down a requirement that doctors or physicians assistants certify in a "letter of medical necessity" that "other pain management treatments have failed" for a patient who has been prescribed Zohydro.

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Correction: Wrong Sperm-Lawsuit story

CLEVELAND — In a story Oct. 1 about a woman being inseminated with the wrong sperm, The Associated Press reported erroneously the number of women who sued. Only one sued, not two.

A correct version of the story was sent Oct. 2. A corrected version is also below:

White Ohio woman sues over sperm from black donor

Ohio woman sues after receiving sperm from a black donor instead of a white donor

By MARK GILLISPIE

Associated Press

CLEVELAND (AP) — An Ohio woman has sued a Chicago-area sperm bank after she became pregnant with sperm donated by a black man instead of a white man as she'd intended.

Jennifer Cramblett was five months pregnant and happy with her life in April 2012. She and her partner had married months earlier in New York, and within days of their nuptials she had become pregnant with donor sperm at a fertility clinic in Canton.

Cramblett, 36, and her partner, Amanda Zinkon, 29, were so elated that they called Midwest Sperm Bank LLC outside Chicago to reserve sperm from the same donor in the hope that Zinkon would someday also have a child.

But that's when Cramblett received some disturbing news, says a lawsuit filed Monday against Midwest Sperm Bank in Cook County, Illinois. She learned from an employee at the sperm bank that she had been inseminated with sperm from No. 330, a black donor, and not No. 380, a white donor she and Zinkon, who are white, had chosen.

"How could they make a mistake that was so personal?" Cramblett said during a telephone interview on Wednesday.

According to the lawsuit, her excitement about the pending birth was replaced with "anger, disappointment and fear."

"They took a personal choice, a personal decision and took it on themselves to make that choice for us out of pure negligence," Cramblett said.

Telephone calls to Midwest Sperm Bank were not returned on Wednesday. It's unclear who the sperm bank's attorney is.

Cramblett said she and Zinkon love their 2-year-old daughter, Payton, very much and wouldn't change anything about her. But they are concerned about raising her in the predominantly white community where they live.

The lawsuit said they had moved from Akron to Uniontown for better schools and to be closer to Cramblett's family. She said that as a lesbian she has felt the sting of prejudice but doesn't know what it's like to be mistreated because of her skin color.

The lawsuit says Cramblett also is worried about how Payton will be treated in her "all-white, and often unconsciously insensitive family."

Therapists have recommended that Cramblett, Zinkon and Payton move to a more a racially diverse community with good schools, the lawsuit said.

Cramblett said she decided to sue to prevent the sperm bank from making the same mistake again. The lawsuit says the sperm bank has no electronic record-keeping and no quality controls that would have prevented it from sending the wrong sperm to fertility clinics.

The lawsuit seeks a minimum of $50,000 in damages. Cramblett's attorney, Tim Misny, said some of the compensation would pay for ongoing counseling.

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GM issues 2 more recalls for SUVs, mini cars

DETROIT — General Motors announced two more recalls Friday, pushing its total for the year to 71, affecting almost 30 million vehicles in North America.

The biggest of the new recalls covers just over 430,000 Cadillac SRX and Saab 9-4X SUVs, mainly in North America. The company says some rear suspension nuts may not have been tightened properly. That could cause the toe link adjuster to separate from the suspension, possibly causing a crash.

Another covers the Chevrolet Spark mini car because the hoods can unexpectedly fly open.

GM also confirmed Friday that it has told dealers to stop selling Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon midsize pickup trucks that went on sale about two weeks ago until an air bag problem is repaired.

The SUV recall covers SRXs from the 2011 through 2015 model years and Saabs from the 2011 and 2012 model years. GM says the problem has caused three crashes and two injuries.

Dealers will inspect the SUVs and install a new assembly if needed. Unsold SRXs are being checked to make sure the nuts are tightened properly.

The other recall covers nearly 94,000 Chevrolet Spark mini-cars from 2013 through 2015 in the U.S. and Canada. Rust can cause a secondary hood latch to stick, and the hood can open unexpectedly, blocking the driver's vision and causing a crash. GM says it knows of no crashes or injuries from the problem.

Dealers will replace the latch when parts are available. GM has told dealers not to sell about 13,000 cars on their lots until the repairs are made.

On the pickup trucks, spokesman Alan Adler said dealers nationwide were told Thursday to stop selling them because the air bags weren't wired properly at the factory in Wentzville, Missouri. A recall is pending. The company is still working on a remedy, which may be a software update, he said.

Most of the trucks remain on dealer lots or at the factory, but GM reported that it sold 47 last month, according to Autodata Corp. GM says that because of the problem, driver air bags won't work as designed.

GM is calling customers and sending out FedEx letters to notify them, and it's offering free loaner vehicles while repairs are being made. The company knows of no crashes or injuries from the problem.

The stop-sale order was first reported Friday by the trade publication Automotive News.

The new trucks are an important launch for GM, which is re-entering a market that Detroit had ceded to Toyota and Nissan. At an investor event this week, a GM executive said the company expects the trucks and the new Chevrolet Trax subcompact SUV to boost annual sales by about 200,000.

The spate of recalls, while troubling for the company, also shows a willingness to address safety problems quickly. GM was fined the maximum $35 million by U.S. safety regulators earlier this year for the delayed recall of 2.6 million older small cars with faulty ignition switches. The problem caused crashes that are responsible for at least 23 deaths. GM has admitted knowing about the problem for more than a decade yet it failed to recall the cars until February of this year.

General Motors Co. shares edged up 43 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $33.61 in midday trading Friday. Its shares had fallen almost 19 percent so far this year through Thursday's close.

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