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Northwest Florida In the News - Feb. 2005
OKALOOSA COUNTY -- Okaloosa Regional Airport near Fort Walton Beach has opened a $30.2-million, 107,500-sq.-ft. terminal, more than twice the size of the previous one, which was 31 years old. The new terminal incorporates design changes to meet new federal security requirements. Traffic in the November launch month was up 7.3% from a year earlier.
PENSACOLA -- An upscale, 10-story condominium proposed by developer Bruce Morrison is the first new exclusively residential mid-rise building planned for the core area in 20 years. City officials say it could provide sizable economic benefits and a needed population boost downtown.HURRICANE IVAN:
Rebuilding Effort
ESCAMBIA/SANTA ROSA -- Rebuild Northwest Florida, a volunteer effort launched by Gulf Coast Community Bank CEO and former legislator Buzz Ritchie, is partnering with Habitat for Humanity to build or repair 2,000 homes destroyed by Hurricane Ivan. The effort is expected to cost more than $100 million. Country legends Kenny Rogers and Willie Nelson have pledged Pensacola benefit concerts to help.WCI Communities has acquired Rod & Reel Marina and adjacent land on Grande Lagoon for its second Pensacola development, to be renamed Lost Key Marina and Yacht Club. It will include 130 to 150 condominium units. WCI's 1,900-unit Lost Key Golf & Beach Club, four miles away on Perdido Key, broke ground in November.
PORT ST. JOE -- Florida Freedom Newspapers has bought The Star Publishing Co., owned since 1951 by Wesley Ramsey and his family. Star publishes the Star in Gulf County and Apalachicola Times and Carrabelle Times in Franklin County. The purchase increases to 140,000 northwest Florida circulation for Freedom publications, which include the Panama City News Herald, Northwest Florida Daily News in Fort Walton Beach and two Walton County weeklies. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
SANTA ROSA COUNTY -- County attorney Tom Dannheisser temporarily prevailed in a lawsuit challenging a state plan to bill counties for the cost of housing juvenile offenders awaiting trail, calling it an illegal, unfunded mandate -- thus saving the county $600,000 last year. But the Legislature in the December special session re-enacted the cost shift, effective this year, and this time in keeping with constitutional procedures for enactment.
The County Commission approved rezoning to allow 900 homes to be built on a 638-acre tract. The project will be the biggest housing development ever in the county's central area north of Milton and Pace. The Department of Community Affairs has to approve the project as a large-scale amendment to the comprehensive plan.
TALLAHASSEE -- Florida State University's Center for Advanced Power Systems has a $5-million federal grant to spearhead a plan to overhaul Florida's electric power grid, possibly providing a national model. Other Florida universities, public utilities and industries will join FSU in research to safeguard and modernize the state's system.
Fry Hammond Barr advertising agency in Orlando will sponsor the inaugural scholarship for a student to participate in Florida State University's newly formed Center for the Study of Hispanic Marketing Communication. The center is the first program of its type in the country. U.S. Hispanic buying power was estimated at $700 billion in 2004.
A proposal for Symphony Condominiums, an 80-unit project by Miami-based ADAR Developer Group, would make five downtown condominium projects in the past two years.
TAYLOR COUNTY -- Land speculator Stephen Alford of Niceville could become the county's biggest landowner if his $500-million bid to purchase 543,000 acres -- most of it in Taylor County -- from Foley Land and Timber Co. is successful. Some 64,000 acres could be resold to Eglin Air Force Base for a bombing test range, which three-fourths of county voters opposed in a November straw poll.
WALTON COUNTY -- Voters have elected the county's first female county commissioner, Cindy Meadows, and its youngest commissioner, Scott Brannon, 23.
