• Reminder: the courthouse is closed Friday and Monday.
• Dane Lucas owns the river party boats and can’t believe that he still has one available for the weekend. “I hired a party planner and I think she found a client with more money, because I still have an empty boat,” he said. It’s the Lady St. Johns which holds 250 and Lucas says “at this point, I’ll let it go pretty damn cheap. Maybe 10 grand.” He’s at 396-2333.
• Yes, The Donald is coming to the game. We hear that New York developer/casino operator Donald Trump is flying in high-rollers who frequent his Atlantic City casinos. He’ll have 24 on his own plane plus 80 more on a rented 727.
• The two temporary Southbank docks didn’t fill up so operators are going to rent weekend spots starting Saturday. The dock nearest the School Board building is full with yachts ranging from 42 to 128 feet but space remains on the one outside the Radisson.
• The seamier side of the Super Bowl is the strip club business and apparently ours is going well. Hootie Roland, who owns four including the Diamond Dolls in San Marco, has brought in 500 bottles of ultra-expensive Cristal Champagne as well as a bevy of strippers from Houston.
• For the weekend, it’s not the Merrill House across from the Arena. ESPN The Magazine has renamed it the Next house as part of their “Next issue” promotion.
• Downtown workers were wandering the streets looking for breakfast Wednesday morning as many regular haunts were closed. The Bay Street Cafe, for instance, is being used for storage.
• Trolley riders, beware. The big vehicles are having a hard time with the traffic and are running late. A large (and unhappy) crowd waited over
a half-hour on Wednesday morning for one to show up.
• New England Coach Bill Belichick’s intensity for the game is legendary and here’s another example. He was standing with former Jaguar linebacker Lonnie Marts backstage at Monday’s Chamber dinner, waiting to be introduced, and Belichick wanted to know Marts’ thoughts on the 3-4 defense.
• The Aetna Building is getting ready to celebrate its 50th anniversary in February. When it opened its doors in 1955 as the Southeast home office for Prudential, the Southbank building was the tallest in Florida. Building management is planning a series of events and hopes to include City officials in the celebration. “That’s really what this is about,” said building manager Betsy Reichert. “Looking back on 50 years of Jacksonville and how the City has grown.” Look for more on the building’s birthday in Tuesday’s Daily Record.
• Due to its location on the southwest tip of the Southbank, the Aetna building has become a favorite for photographers and Downtown Vision Inc., looking for shots of the downtown skyline. The downside for building management is the Aetna Building never appears in any of the photos. “I’ve started asking them when they’re going to start including the Southbank in these pictures,” said building manager Betsy Reichert.
• While Amsterdam Cafe owner Mark Jackson is looking to move out of the Sports Complex — he just put his cafe for sale on Ebay — he’s moving in to Bay Street, at least temporarily. Jackson is opening a temporary club there to take advantage of the crowds drawn by the T-U SuperFest.
• New face on the City Council beat for The Florida Times-Union. Gregory Richards is moving over from the business section where he was covering the airport.
• The mayor’s office had its own team of Super Bowl scouts making sure downtown was ready for Super Bowl visitors. Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver, St. Joe CEO Peter Rummel and Zurich Insurance chairman Tom Petway rode around in a car together Monday morning giving downtown a final look. Other than one trash-strewn empty lot, the City passed the inspection.
• The painter of “First Team,” the building-sized mural that used to adorn the Ed Ball building, wonders why the painting was removed just months before the Super Bowl. “It seemed kind of silly to whitewash it just before the Super Bowl, it was a Jacksonville landmark,” said Anne Banas, the mural’s creator. Banas reproduced 300 prints of the mural and is selling them for $50 each at annebanas.com. The prints are only three feet wide so they won’t take up the side of your house.
• Some bailiffs at the Duval County Courthouse are complaining about the building’s Super Bowl schedule. The bailiffs have been told to take vacation days or forfeit pay for Friday and Monday when the building will be closed.
• The rain put a bit of a damper on the Downtown Farmer’s Market Wednesday. Vendors said they had decent crowds at lunchtime, but the weather kept away the crowds they were expecting. They hope for better weather and attendance Thursday and Friday.
• One of the better competitions in town is among Watson Realty agents to see who can be the “Salesperson of the Month.” Jan Shields of Atlantic Beach won 10 of 12 last year, but Missy DeKay rode the booming Ponte Vedra market to start the year with a win. “Jan will be OK,” said Nancy Ryan of Watson headquarters. “She hit $67 million last year and she’ll try and top that.”
• The man calling the TV shots at the game is a former University of Florida player, Artie Kempner, class of 1981. He got his break while a student when a network came to Gainesville to televise a swimming meet and he was hired as a gofer. He’ll choose which cameras is “on” during the game.
• One scene you’ll see plenty of: the Philadelphia Eagles’ cheerleaders. Most pro football cheering squads emphasize gymnastics, which requires slim supple bodies (the Jaguars are a good example.) Philly’s girls are anything but that.