• What’s holding up new residential development on the Northbank? How about the Southbank. Real estate consultant Ray Rodriguez, president of the Real Estate Strategy Center of North Florida, said the Southbank market has an obvious early jump on its across-the-river counterpart. “All you have to do is look for the cranes, the Southbank has them, there’s no cranes on the Northbank,” he said. “Every person that buys on the Southbank is a person that isn’t going to buy downtown.”
• Good news for new Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Roslyn Mixon Phillips. Her official date of her new title has been changed from June 27 to June 20.
• The University of North Florida has released its 2005-2015 Master Plan update. Currently, UNF offers 82 academic programs. That number is projected to jump to 109 by the 2009-10 school year and to 123 by the 2014-15 school year. Also, the school plans to build 1,000 more dorm rooms and expects full-time enrollment to be about 12,000 by 2015.
• The Jacksonville Economic Development Commission meets Thursday at 9 a.m. on the 14th floor of the City Hall Annex.
• Attention would-be job seekers. Legislation has been filed that would make funds available for the Jacksonville Children’s Commission to hire a literacy liaison to the Mayor’s Office. The bad news? Jim Van Vleck has been serving in that capacity for some time, but only in a temp-to-hire capacity. The legislation would establish him as full-time.
• The Jacksonville Asian American Bar Association had to cancel its monthly meeting scheduled for last Thursday due to a large number of members leaving town early for the holiday weekend. The new meeting will be held this Thursday at Koja Sushi in the Landing at noon. New board members will be elected at this week’s luncheon.
• Though many high profile Florida lawyers were nominated and named to Florida Trend magazine’s annual Florida Legal Elite list, one name is unobtrusively absent. Alan Bookman, the new president of the Florida Bar, was not included in the list.
• The McCormick Agency’s Maria Coppola finally won the karaoke contest at the Stadium Club last Thursday night. She had finished close to the top several times.
• New vendor at the Hemming Plaza Farmer’s Market: sharks tooth seller. The vendor said he’ll be at the market about once a month.
• Mayor John Peyton is holding an “Evening with the Mayor” July 19 at the Temple Congregation Ahavath Chesed on San Jose Boulevard to talk about diversity issues in Jacksonville. Representatives from Jacksonville Community Council, Inc. and the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission will also be on hand.