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Talk of the bay: Another hotel in West Shore steps up stars
By Times Staff
Published December 18, 2007
Another West Shore hotel will get a multimillion-dollar makeover and a new, more-upscale brand. MHI Hospitality Corp. bought the shuttered Clarion Hotel on W Kennedy Boulevard near WestShore Plaza for $16.5-million in October. The real estate investment trust based in Williamsburg, Va., plans to spend $22-million to rebuild the hotel scheduled to reopen in early 2009 as a Crowne Plaza. Earlier, the former Wyndham Westshore reopened as the Intercontinental Tampa after an $18-million renovation. State fund flow reverses course The State Board of Administration finally had some good news to share Monday about its beleaguered local government investment pool: Deposits exceeded withdrawals for the first time since the fund reopened for business Dec. 6 after restructuring. Twelve investors deposited a total of $43-million, while 11 together withdrew $9-million. Problems with housing-related investments led to a run on the fund last month. Schools tout tech to tune of millions Licensing: It does a university good. According to the Association of University Technology Managers' report on the 2006 activities of technology-transfer organizations, which nurse Eureka moments at academic institutions into products for sale, 697 new products reached the marketplace because of technology-transfer organizations. At the University of Florida and University of South Florida, income raked in from 2006 licenses held steady (at $43-million and $1.7-million, respectively). But at Florida State, licensing income fell off a cliff from 2005 to 2006, decreasing by more than half, from $2.5-million to $1.1-million. University of Central Florida's fortune fared better: It increased its licensing income by a whopping 345 percent from $163,955 in 2005 to $730,398 in 2006. Out with the old, in with new Ikea The sale to Ikea will not be completed until January, but demolition of the sprawling Tampa International Center at the southeast corner of Adamo Drive and 22nd Street is under way. Built as a can manufacturing plant, the 564,000-square-foot center has been largely vacant for years and will be replaced by the largest Ikea warehouse and retail outlet in Florida. The two-story, 353,000-square-foot store/warehouse is scheduled to open in the summer of 2009.
[Last modified December 17, 2007, 22:44:30]
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