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Talk of the bay

By TIMES WIRES
Published December 30, 2006

FIDELITY COULD MAKE INVESTMENT IN A FLORIDA SITE

Is Boston's famous Fidelity Investments sniffing around Florida to relocate some of its workers? The Boston Herald on Friday reported the well-known investment and mutual fund giant might transfer hundreds of workers at Boston's World Trade Center elsewhere as the company struggles with an office-space crunch. The newspaper reported no decisions have been made, but cited internal Fidelity memos showing the company's pricing and cash-management services unit might be on the out-of-state hunt. "Sources say sites in Texas and Florida are under consideration," the Herald reported.

Crist puts premium on insurance fix

Charlie Crist isn't official yet as Florida's new governor, but he's wasting no time expressing his populist-flavored ideas about the state's property insurance mess. Here's a remark he made in the January issue of Florida Trend magazine, a sister publication of the St. Petersburg Times: "Another area I've talked about is the cherry-picking that some of the national insurance companies do - where these national companies will set up an opportunity to sell both property insurance and auto insurance, and they'll sell property insurance in 48 or 49 other states but not Florida. Yet they are delighted to sell auto coverage to our 18-million people and in essence sort of discriminate in Florida by not selling property insurance that they already write in other states. I just think that's wrong, and I think we ought to stop it. How do you do it? Law. You pass a damn law." Is this for real? Let's see what happens in the special legislative session in mid January.

Not much cooking in building plans

David Laxer is still pursuing his dream of building a multi-use development across the street from Bern's Steak House, the legendary Tampa restaurant his late father founded. But several years after commencing the fundraising, design and permitting processes, Laxer hasn't broken ground. And last week, a former project consultant sued, demanding $260,000 in allegedly unpaid bills. Laxer declined to comment Friday on the suit or the project's status.

Correction

OSI Restaurant Partners of Tampa declined to divulge whether it has received any competing buyout offers to one announced last month. A headline in Friday's Talk of the Bay was incorrect on this point.

[Last modified December 29, 2006, 23:34:24]