Historian Monica Kile will lead a virtual walking tour down Central Avenue Dec. 15 from 4:30 to 5 p.m. Tickets for the tour, sponsored by I Love the Burg, are available here.
Following a Wednesday shooting that left a 20-year-old man dead and a veteran St. Petersburg police officer injured, police chief Anthony Holloway announced at a press conference Thursday that the incident will be investigated by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, the County’s Use of Deadly Force Investigative Task Force and the State Attorney’s office. Once the investigation is complete, Holloway said, the St. Pete police department will evaluate its policies and procedures to determine if any violations occurred during the shooting, which occurred when police attempted to capture Dominique Harris - who was wanted on a charge of child abuse - outside the Food Max on 18th Avenue South. Both Holloway and Mayor Rick Kriseman urged the community to remain calm and wait for the facts to come out before drawing any conclusions. The officer injured in the shooting is recovering and in good condition, Holloway said. He and Kriseman both expressed condolences to Harris’s family.
The Portopiccolo Group, a family owned investment management firm in New Jersey, has bought Jacaranda Manor, a nursing home at 4250 66th St. N. in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg Fl Propco LLC, an entity associated with Portopiccolo Group, acquired the property for $29.4 million on Nov. 24, according to a deed filed Wednesday in Pinellas County. The seller was an entity associated with DeFoor Brothers, a development company in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Jacaranda Manor, with 299 licensed beds, is the fifth nursing home in Pinellas County that Portopiccolo Group has acquired in the last few weeks. The company previously spent $37.7 million for four nursing homes in Clearwater, Oldsmar and Palm Harbor.
USF Health and Tampa General Hospital will provide clinical trial testing for the Novavax NVX-CoV2373 vaccine for Covide-19. They join more than 100 research sites expecting to enroll more than 30,000 adult participants as part of the global search for a safe and effective vaccine to prevent the virus. The USF Health/TGH research physicians are seeking more than 250 Tampa Bay area volunteers to participate in the trial. Enrollment is targeted to begin in a few weeks, a news release said.
The Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area ranks No. 6 out of 50 metro areas nationwide on a new list of best places for women entrepreneurs. SmartAsset, a personal finance website, said 20.3 percent of businesses in the metro area are owned by women. In addition, women in the Tampa-St. Pete area earn 79.7 percent as much as men. The local area also benefits from the fact that Florida fares well in terms of new businesses created in 2020, and that two different measures of unemployment — overall unemployment and unemployment for women — are relatively low. See the full survey here. It's the second year SmartAsset has reported on best places for women entrepreneurs. Last year, the Tampa-St. Pete area ranked No. 8.
The Tampa Bay Rays and the Tampa Bay Rowdies will celebrate their championships with a series of road trips around the area. The tour will lead off at the St. Pete Pier from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 3 with special appearances by Rowdies Head Coach Neill Collins and Rays World Series Game 4 Hero, Brett Phillips. Other appearances are planned between now and Dec. 31 at Tierra Verde, Tampa, Dade City and Wesley Chapel. See the full schedule here. Fans will be able to take photos of the Rays American League Championship trophy, the Rowdies Eastern Conference Champions trophy and the Petco Park chair that "caught" Mike Brosseau's series-winning home run against the Yankees in the American League Division Series. There also will b a chance to shop for exclusive merchandise from both teams.
The Florida Department of Health reported another 435 cases of Covid-19 Wednesday and nine new deaths, bringing the county’s total to 911 since the start of the pandemic. As of Wednesday, the county now has 33,493 positive cases and a rolling two-week positivity rate of 5.65 percent, with a 5.93 percent positivity rate reported Tuesday. Statewide, more than one million cases of the virus have been diagnosed since March, along with 18,776 deaths. The St. Pete Catalyst has a daily update on total cases by ZIP code, which you can find here.
TruAmerica Multifamily, a Los Angeles-based multifamily investor and operator, has bought a 292-unit apartment complex in Palm Harbor. TruAmerica paid $47 million for Lakeview at Palm Harbor, at 3975 Country Place Lane, according to a deed filed Tuesday in Pinellas County. The seller was Lakes of Palm Harbor LLC, an entity associated The RADCO Companies in Atlanta. RADCO bought the apartment complex five years ago for $33.5 million, property records show. TruAmerica has a growing portfolio of apartment complexes in the area. The company bought Estates at Countryside in Clearwater in September, and also owns Bayou Point in Pinellas Park, Four Lakes at Clearwater, Runaway Bay in Pinellas Park, and Twin Lakes in Palm Harbor.
StPete2050, a community-generated vision for where the city is going and what it can become over the next 30 years, is seeking feedback through its third community survey. Participants can share their thoughts on the mission and goals outlined in the StPete2050 plan for areas including arts and culture, attainable housing, diversity, equity and inclusion, education and growth and character. For more information and to complete the survey, click here.
The University of South Florida announced Wednesday it will receive a $60,000 grant from the Helios Education Foundation to further the university’s longstanding commitment to student success for underrepresented populations. The investment through the USF Foundation will be used to hire an external consultant to assess the student pipeline from local community and state colleges and high schools within six counties close to USF. Recommendations based on the findings, which are scheduled to be completed in spring 2021, will help the university to develop new and more effective strategies to recruit and enroll college-ready Black students from regional high schools into one of USF’s three campuses. The grant builds on the university’s plans for additional steps to support diversity and inclusion USF president Steve Currall announced in August.
Integrated Solutions Management Inc. in Tampa has sold to ASGN Inc., a Richmond, Virginia-based provider of IT and professional services firm. Financial terms were not disclosed in a news release announcing the deal. ISM, founded in 1991, brings expertise in Internet of Things (IoT) technology, IT service and operations management. ISM will become part of the ECS segment at ASGN (NYSE: ASGN) and will be integrated into the Enterprise Business Solutions Group. About 75 ISM employees will join ASGN.
A federal judge in Tampa has sentenced Tom Wynne, former owner of a pain management clinic in Pinellas Park, to 33 months in federal prison. Wynne pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiracy to commit tax evasion, tax evasion and money laundering. Wynne, who owned and operated Pain and Wellness Clinic, hired medical doctors to prescribe large quantities of Schedule II controlled substances, like oxycodone and hydromorphone, outside the usual course of professional practice, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida. He underreported the clinic's receipts on his tax filings and conspired to create and prepare bogus tax documents for the clinic's doctors, the news release said. The court ordered Wynne to forfeit two properties, repay the IRS $359,209 and pay a $150,000 fine.
