• Citizen’s arrest? Sort of. Thursday morning Sean Mulholland, owner of Mulholland Investigations, and lead investigator Jeff Neadle chased down a would-be purse snatcher. They caught the guy at the corner of Monroe and Liberty until the police arrived.
• Vestcor had two big issues resolved during Thursday’s Design Review Committee meeting. The sign at The Carling was approved and the dispute over retail space on the first floor of the parking garage was settled.
• More on area streetscape improvements: Phase Two of the Main Street improvement project should get started before the end of the summer. Blocks between 4th and 12th streets will be resurfaced and landscaped. Utility upgrades are also expected. You’ll recall that, for a time, the project lagged due to a lack of funds. Thanks to local and state grants, it was able to move forward.
• One of Broadway’s all-time biggest draws — “The Phantom of the Opera” — is coming to Jacksonville next year. It will be at the T-U Center May 17 through June 4.
• Good news for Florida State University alumni: Popular dining spot Bagel Bagel opened a second location in Jacksonville this week. The bad news? It’s all the way out near OakLeaf Plantation near Cecil Commerce Center, nowhere near downtown.
• Design work on Phase Two of the Bay Street Town Center has begun. The scope of the project won’t be clear until project bids come back. However, it appears parcels of land occupied by the City Hall Annex and the Duval County Courthouse won’t be included. Parking along Bay Street is expected to remain the same.
• Facing a tight budget year along with the rest of the City, the Library Board of Trustees has come up with a clever way to pay for library materials including books, music and computer databases. They’ve requested that about $500,000 available in the library’s payroll be moved to a special account designed to pay for those kinds of things. The reason there is so much money in payroll? About 26 library positions remain unfilled because of the delays keeping various branches across the city from opening on time. The board said those jobs may never be filled due to the aforementioned budget reductions.
LATE SCORES
National League
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