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BRANDON - The Brandon Parkway won't be a filming location for The Punisher after all. Amy Johnson, publicist for the film starring John Travolta, said the parkway was abandoned as a shooting location because the scene was tweaked. Filmmakers decided the Laurel Street Bridge in downtown Tampa would be a better location.
The scene was shot on the bridge Saturday and Sunday, just a few blocks from the former Bank of America building that was transformed into a swank nightclub for the movie.
In August, the Hillsborough County Expressway Authority approved filmmakers' request to use the nearly complete road this month to film a car chase scene.
The Punisher, based on Marvel Comics hero G-Man Frank Castle, is due to be released next summer.
Horses out, retail in?MANGO - A Tennessee-based developer has posted a sign in front of Aldridge Farms Performance Horses, indicating the longtime horse training facility on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard will be replaced by a retail development.
But Lisa Aldridge insists she and her husband George Jr., who train horses for some 40 clients, aren't packing their bags just yet. "Someone is always interested in this property," she said. "Until money changes hands, we're not counting our pennies. We've learned these people come and go."
Much of the surrounding land has been taken over by a gas station, a Walgreens and a Kash n' Karry.
Officials from Horne Properties Inc., refused to comment on their interest and plans for the 17 acres. The national real estate development corporation is working on the Goolsby Pointe Shopping Center in Riverview, according to the company's Web site. "It will be difficult when we do move, if we do move," Lisa Aldridge said. "This is more like a homestead than a business."