• The Mayo Clinic may have opened a new building last year, but the hospital has plenty of room for future growth. According to Dr. Jack Leventhal, the hospital’s foundation goes to the bedrock which could allow expansion of the building from five floors to 16. That would also mean Mayo could go from 214 beds to 500 beds.
• Speaking of Mayo, the annual economic impact is larger than anything else in the area. A University of North Florida study determined the impact to be $1.21 billion a year. The Players Championship is $62 million, the Gator Bowl’s impact is $75 million and the 2005 Super Bowl had an impact of $360 million.
• There’s a new Hampton Inn & Suites going up on Beach Boulevard. It’s near the Hodges/Beach intersection.
• Local Playboy Playmate Laura Croft is in the March issue of Surfing Magazine. Each month the magazine features the girlfriend or wife of a pro surfer. Croft, who graduated from Flagler College in December, is dating Jody Davis. The two met in St. Augustine.
• City Council Vice President Richard Clark sat in on Tuesday’s Finance Committee as a voting member since regular Finance members Daniel Davis, Warren Jones and Art Graham were all excused from the meeting.
• Speaking of Council, the portraits of John Crescimbeni and Reggie Brown are now among the other 17 members of Council.
• RailAmerica and the Florida East Coast Railway will christen four energy efficient locomotives Jan. 30 at 10 a.m. The ceremony is to celebrate RailAmerica’s Jacksonville arrival and will be held at Florida East Coast’s Bowden Yard at 7150 Philips Highway.
• Mayor John Peyton recently received a letter from Bob Rhodes, the former chair of the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission who is at Georgia State University on a sabbatical as Practitioner in Residence at the GSU School of Law. The letter included an attached Atlanta Journal-Constitution story about regional transportation efforts in Atlanta. Rhodes is also on a leave of absence from Foley & Lardner.
• Speaking of Peyton, he also received a letter from the United State Conference of Mayors encouraging residents to switch to electronic for federal benefits and bill payments in February as part of the organization’s “Go Direct/Direct Express Month.” The measure is a joint effort with the U.S. Treasury and the letter cited that nearly 70,000 Treasury issued checks totaling an estimated $64 million were stolen or fraudulently endorsed in 2008.
• One less lunch option: Meyer’s Latin Flair at the Landing has closed.
• No word on what’s going in the space, but the former Bread & Butter Cafe at the corner of Laura and Adams has been gutted.