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Northeast Fla., Jacksonville Business Briefs - July 2008
DUVAL COUNTY
The school district cut 100 district-level staff positions to help make up a $51-million budget shortfall. Because fixed costs, such as transportation, utilities and union-approved salary increases, are expected to go up about $19 million next year, the district must trim a total of $70 million.
FERNANDINA BEACH
Atlantic Coast Federal and Bank of America plan to shutter offices in Fernandina, citing loan losses and other setbacks. Georgia-based Citizens State Bank is purchasing Atlantic Coast’s deposits and building and will be the only bank remaining downtown.
GAINESVILLE
Smithsonian.com named Gainesville one of 15 cities, and the only one in Florida, in its “Where to Live Next” guide for the “culturally attuned.”
GILCHRIST COUNTY
The county planning board turned down a controversial airplane and golf community dubbed Oak Tree Landing. The 800-acre project would have straddled Gilchrist and Alachua counties. The rural county said the project doesn’t comply with its comprehensive plan. The developer, Stiles Corp., is working with local officials and University of Florida professors on comp-plan amendments and ways to make the development compatible with the local environment.
JACKSONVILLE
Susan H. Walker has retired as Florida president for Bank of America. Elizabeth Ferrer, a Bank of America veteran, has replaced Walker.
» The FBI raided the offices of Muifield Partners and the First Coast Black Business Investment Corp., two businesses led by Tony Nelson, a local power broker. Nelson took a voluntary leave of absence from his position as vice chairman of the Jacksonville Port Authority for the duration of the FBI investigation. Also raided were the offices of Subaqueous Services and Rham Construction, businesses with port contracts.
» St. Joe Co. (NYSE-JOE) reported first-quarter earnings of $32.1 million, up 63% from a year earlier. The company sold 57,435 rural acres during the quarter, accounting for $91.1 million of its total revenue of $116.8 million. Residential sales revenue dropped 52% to $17.6 million.
» Jacksonville International Airport opened its new concourse A, part of a $170-million expansion that will eventually double both concourses A and C while adding two more gates. The expansion will provide about 17,000 additional square feet of concession and retail space, boosting airport revenue by more than $1.2 million. Concourse C is expected to open in November.
» The Women’s Board of Wolfson Children’s Hospital raised a record $2 million for Wolfson’s Surgical Services and the Children’s Emergency Center.
NASSAU COUNTY
CSX Corp. (NYSE-CSX) announced a $40-million track upgrade and a link between Jacksonville and Georgia to help ease truck traffic as increased port business puts more cargo on the roads. CSX says the changes will remove about 1,100 trucks from highways every day; a recent First Coast Metropolitan Planning Organization study projected port activity will add more than 8,000 trucks daily by 2020.
NEWBERRY
The city approved a $900,000 loan to help build an Olympic-sized archery center proposed by a division of California-based Easton-Bell Sports.
