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Northeast Fla., Jacksonville Business Briefs - Oct. 2008
GAINESVILLE
The University of Florida proposed a sweeping rewrite of its student conduct code that would ban drinking games and beer kegs on campus and more clearly spell out requirements for sexual consent. The rules, under revision since 2006, were proposed a week after UF was named the top party school in the nation by the Princeton Review.
GILCHRIST COUNTY
The Suwannee River Water Management District board bought 636 acres around and including Otter Springs and Little Otter Springs for $6.8 million. More than a mile of the conservation purchase fronts the Suwannee River. The deal also requires the former property owner to give up a bottled water permit.
JACKSONVILLE
JDI Realty of Chicago took ownership of several buildings downtown after no one bought them at an auction of Orlando developer Cameron Kuhn’s properties. JDI had loaned Kuhn tens of millions of dollars for the redevelopment of the old Barnett Bank, Bisbee, Florida Life and Marble Bank buildings. Kuhn couldn’t repay his loans in the bleak real estate market, and JDI foreclosed. In the case of the SunTrust Tower, part of which Kuhn had converted to office condos, JDI has begun offering office space for lease.
» The Jacksonville Port Authority terminated its contract with Rham Construction, a company with ties to former board member Tony Nelson, a local civic figure who resigned from the port board amid an FBI investigation. Port executives say Rham’s hiring “circumvented the formal bidding process.” Rham has received more than $320,000 from the port for oversight work.
» A judge ruled Mayport Village residents can go forward with their lawsuit fighting the port authority’s plans to relocate its cruise ship terminal there. Jaxport wants to move the terminal away from Dames Point Bridge to make room for Hanjin Shipping’s new cargo terminal. Mayport residents argue their village is an inappropriate site; the state designated it a “recreational and commercial working waterfront” for uses such as boat repairs, wharfs and docks. The working waterfronts designation excludes “seaports.”
» Mayor John Peyton says the city will go to court to challenge Georgia-Pacific’s proposed wastewater pipeline into the St. Johns River. The DEP approved the line after determining the waste is too dirty for Rice Creek, where it currently goes.
» J. Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver, owners of the Jacksonville Jaguars, gave $150,000 to the St. Johns Riverkeeper, to help the organization fight St. Johns River Water Management District plans to withdraw millions of gallons a day from the river for water supply in central Florida.
» Some City Council members are irked about Mayor Peyton’s creation of the Jacksonville Journey Foundation, which would dole out millions of dollars for anti-crime measures. Jacksonville Journey was the name of the mayor’s ambitious project to come up with solutions to the city’s crime problem. He created the non-profit foundation without input from City Council members, who have raised questions about its power and possible duplication of services.
» St. Luke’s Hospital cut 70 jobs, citing a weaker-than-expected economy and fiercer-than-expected competition from nearby health facilities. Administrators with St. Vincent’s Health Care System, which took over St. Luke’s in April, say they hope to transfer about half of those positions elsewhere in the company.
» Jacksonville-based MPS Group (NYSE-MPS) became the new title sponsor of the former Bausch & Lomb Championships, the women’s professional tennis tournament.
The MPS Group Championships, scheduled for April 6-12, also has a new tournament site: Oceanfront Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach.
OCALA
Houston-based Maxwest Environmental Systems and the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders’ and Owners Association have proposed a gasification plant that would use horse manure trucked from throughout Marion County to produce renewable thermal energy. Ocala is home to 431 thoroughbred breeding and training farms covering 70,000 acres of pastureland, and manure disposal is a problem. Maxwest wants to build a facility that would covert upward of 100,000 tons of manure and wood waste a year into 7.2 megawatts of energy a day, enough for about 1,400 homes.
MARION COUNTY
The county has completed a $100,000 aquifer mapping project showing where groundwater is most vulnerable to contamination.The map will be used in land-use decisions.
