Wichita and Sedgwick County officials said they are optimistic they can nail down a proposed $52.7 million, 450-job Bombardier Learjet expansion at Mid-Continent Airport, a deal that awaits state agreement on an incentives package that local officials said could run between $16million and $18million.

City and county officials already have approved their portion of the plan, contributing $1million each. But Learjet has approached the state for the second time in about 16 months for millions of dollars in incentives.

Bombardier spokeswoman Danielle Boudreau said this week that there are ongoing discussions with the state. Nothing to announce yet.

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Meriden can see light at tunnel’s end as it eagerly awaits station and track upgrades to raise its profile to more than just a stopover on Connecticut’s vaunted $647 million expansion of high-speed rail service linking New Haven, Hartford and Springfield.

The central-region community also has “The Hub,’’ 14 center-city acres across from its existing Civil War-era station — plus state and federal dollars to develop it — into a floodless town green that would perhaps eventually be hugged by housing, shops and cultural attractions.

“The question isn’t whether we’re going to succeed,’’ Town Manager Lawrence Kendzior boasts. “The question is to wha

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Many in the federal community fear the word “sequestration.”

That’s the technical term for the across-the-board cuts — half from defense, half from civilian agencies — that would be triggered if the Congressional supercommittee fails to come up with a deficit-cutting plan by next week.

But at least one budget expert says sequestration’s bark is worse than its bite.

For one thing, the cuts wouldn’t even go into effect until Jan. 2, 2013, notes Stan Collender, a budget expert and partner at Qorvis Communications.

“So, they’re not immediate. And

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U.S. markets shot higher Friday after the upper house in the Italian Parliament passed its 2012 budget bill and Greece swore in a new government.

Italy’s lower house must also pass the bill. If it does, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has pledged to resign. Coupled with Thursday’s news that Italy had conducted a successful auction of one-year bonds, worries of a collapsing eurozone eased.

Greece’s new interim coalition government was put into place Friday, with Lucas Papademos as the prime minister.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average continued to recover from Wednesday’s 389-point drop.

After gaining 112 points Thursday, the DJIA added an additional 259.89 points or 2.17 percent to 12,153.68.

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National and regional home sales slipped predictably in September as the peak summer sales period waned, according to an index by the National Association of Realtors that measures pending sales.

The group’s pending home sales index fell 4.6 percent nationally in September, and 6.2 percent in the Midwest, the NAR said. Read more…

Developer Martin Kenny has his sights set on his next major development.

Fresh off the success of his $12 million Addison Mill apartment project in Glastonbury, Kenny now has plans to triple down on his investment in the cozy suburb just southeast of Hartford.

Kenny is proposing to build a 230-unit luxury apartment complex off the New London Turnpike in Glastonbury on the site occupied by Flanagan Industries.

The $35 million plan—to be called Flanagans Landing—includes renovating and converting the existing manufacturing complex into 33 apartment units to preserve the old-style mill look and brick façade.

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