• The Downtown Council’s Hard Hat Residential Tour is currently being planned for this fall. Their last residential tour, which was then called Downtown Council’s Hard Hat Loft Tour, was in 2003.
• The Twisted Martini announced it will be opening a second location in Ponte Vedra. Steve Anderson, marketing director for the Twisted Martini, said they are planning to open the club by the first of the year.
• The first order of business at the Chamber’s Downtown Council meeting is self-introductions and, after several windy discourses Friday including one from a Chamber staff member, Crenshaw staffer Jackie Smith commented, “People in this room could teach Washington how to filibuster.”
• Downtown Vision, Inc. estimates there are now 55,000 working Downtown.
• No blackouts here, but JEA did set a new record for summer electricity use Thursday, generating 2,844 megawatts for more than 400,000 customers in Duval, St. Johns and Clay counties. The previous record was 2,838 megawatts set Aug. 17, 2005.
• Wakefield Beasley & Associates Architects, Inc., are relocating to larger quarters, but they’re not going too far. They’re moving from the third to fourth floor of the University of Phoenix building on Butler Boulevard.
• Baptist Health’s p.r. ace Cindy Hamilton is at the head of her class. She was elected president of the Florida Society for Healthcare Public Relations and Marketing recently.
• Richard La Mee of LaMee the Florist is the new president of the Osprey Club, the athletic booster organization at the University of North Florida. Brian Goin of The Players Championship is the first vice president and Jim McCarthy of Spectrum Marketing and Public Affairs is the second vice president.
• The Jacksonville Symphony Chorus is looking for new singers. Auditions are Aug. 26 at 9 a.m. at Jacksonville U.’s Phillips Fine Arts Building. It’s appointment only, so you can’t just show up. Call 354-5479, ext. 221 for info.
• Pioneers-4-Jax is holding its bimonthly meeting Aug. 10 at 6:32 p.m. in the Community Center of the 11 E. Terry Lorince, executive director of Downtown Vision Inc., will be the guest speaker. “We have two important announcements that introduce action intended to move the livability and viability of our downtown forward,” said Susann Marino, founder of Pioneers-4-Jax.
• Clarification. In our July 28 story on the River Accord, we said JEA would be responsible for removing the area’s 21,000 failing septic tanks. While JEA is certainly a major partner in the 10-year, $742 million plan to clean up the lower basin of the St. Johns River, the Water and Sewer Expansion Authority — which was formed in 2003 — will handle the removal of the tanks.
The new Downtown This Week is out and the cover story is about the changes on Riverside Avenue in the Brooklyn area. The magazine is free and available all over Downtown.