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Northwest Florida In the News - Nov. 2005
BAY COUNTY -- New county administrator Edwin Smith, 54, replaces Pam Brangaccio, who resigned in June. Smith, formerly Chiefland city manager, was selected over 31 other candidates.
CHIPLEY -- Carl Icahn-affiliated American Real Estate Partners has bought WestPoint Stevens, which has manufacturing plants in Chipley and Marianna. The plants, now part of operating company WestPoint Home, make top-of-bed accessories. Combined employment, now 955, could increase by 50, manager Terry Ellis says.
DESTIN -- The Mattie Kelly Arts Foundation has broken ground for the three-phase, multimillion-dollar Mattie Kelly Cultural Arts Village. The 45-acre project, to be Destin's first cultural arts center, will feature an outdoor concert and festival site, student art labs and gallery space, 350-seat theater and an artists village. Land was donated by the late Mattie Kelly, business pioneer and arts philanthropist.
The PGA Tour's Champions Tour will play its next rounds at The Raven Golf Club at the Sandestin Resort on May 12-14, as the Boeing Championship at Sandestin. Staged for the past 11 years as Blue Angels Classic at Moors Golf Club near Milton, the event was handicapped by limited local sponsorship, low attendance and untimely storms. Boeing and Sandestin's joint sponsorship, estimated to be valued at $3 million, ensures play through 2008.
NORTHWEST FLORIDA -- The region expects 1,251 additional military jobs as a result of Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommendations, expected to win congressional approval. Top gun in new assignments is Eglin Air Force Base, designated for a 2,442-job increase. Pensacola Naval Air Station will lose 1,091 jobs but won a decisive victory when BRAC rejected a Pentagon proposal to move the Naval Education and Training Command and its three-star admiral to Millington, Tenn. Minimal losses are projected for Hurlburt Field (54) and Tyndall Air Force Base (46).
Schools in the Panhandle's five westernmost counties enrolled nearly half of the 6,000 students who registered in Florida as a result of Hurricane Katrina evacuations, according to a late September count. County numbers: Bay, 552; Escambia, 719; Okaloosa, 702; Santa Rosa, 337; Walton, 403.
OKALOOSA COUNTY -- School board members are studying a five-year, $59-million capital plan calling for 118 classrooms and including a new elementary school in Crestview. About half of the extra classrooms are needed to satisfy the state's class-size mandate; the rest will meet growth needs, including potentially 17 classrooms for children of military personnel transferred following BRAC decisions.
PANAMA CITY -- The City Commission recently rejected Mayor Lauren DeGeorge's proposal for a six-month moratorium on condominium development but kept in place a 150-foot height limit for residential buildings. Business groups at a packed commission meeting said a moratorium sends a negative message to potential developers and investors.
PENSACOLA -- Hurricane Katrina's trip through the Big Easy could slow but won't change area developers' plans for New Orleans. Developer Allen Levin is partnering with hotel magnate Donald Trump to build what could become New Orleans' tallest building, at 50 to 70 stories. "We're still excited by what the city can do,'' says Levin, whose partners include New Orleans Saints football coach Jim Haslett and Pensacola's Robert Rinke and Cliff Mowe. The hotel/condominium project's one-acre site near Harrah's Casino and the French Quarter, purchased for $6.5 million, was little damaged by the storm.
City, county, business and environmental leaders are still hoping for a better offer from the Environmental Protection Agency than the $25-million cleanup proposal outlined for the Escambia Treating Co. Superfund site. EPA proposes to bury more than a half-million cubic yards of contaminated soil on site. Local groups, hoping to redevelop the site for business use, want the material's toxicity reduced first.
SANTA ROSA COUNTY -- Voters, in their eighth such referendum since Prohibition's end in 1933, opted to end the county's long dry spell, with a 57.7% majority approving sales of liquor and wine. Pro-approval campaigners said a "yes'' vote would aid economic development and keep sales tax dollars within the county.
TALLAHASSEE -- Bob Gabordi, a 26-year news business veteran and Gannett Co. award-winning editor, is the new executive editor of the Tallahassee Democrat, moving from a similar post at the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times. Gabordi replaced Mizell Stewart III, who left after Gannett bought the Democrat from Knight Ridder in August.
