Loading
Coffee Talk (Tampa edition)
Appropriate gift
There was neighborhood opposition to overcome. Reconfiguring an old gas station-turned-flower shop into a bank office wasn't easy. Then, of course, the city regulatory bureaucracy had to be subdued.
After a year or so, though, First Commercial Bank of Tampa Bay may finally be opening its second office on Feb. 7.
The Tampa-based banking subsidiary of FCB Financial Inc. is celebrating by handing out alarm clocks. The first 100 customers who open a personal or business checking account with a $250 minimum balance are eligible for the gift.
The new branch is located at the corner of Gandy Boulevard and MacDill Avenue in South Tampa, near a booming district of condominium and townhouse development.
"It's not a grandfather clock," concedes Nick Sargent, a marketing and business development associate with FCB. "But I've had one on my desk for a while and it works pretty well."
Albert M. Salem Jr., who is chairman, president and chief executive of the $142-million-asset FCB, thought up the promotion.
At least it's a change from the typical free toaster. Plus, Salem probably couldn't resist the symbolism. The 15-year-old bank has waited a long time to expand.
New home
All those billboards that John Bales leased to advertise his legal services must be working. The former president of the Hillsborough County Bar Association and his wife, Tracy, recently purchased a $3 million home from New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and his wife, Joan.
The deal included an 8,901-square-foot home and a separate 1,739-square-foot building on more than an acre of land in South Tampa's Beach Park subdivision.
Bales and his wife mortgaged the property for $1.3 million through Northern Trust Bank FL NA, official records show.
John Ryle Lawson Jr.
Tampa attorney John Ryle Lawson Jr., 73, died Jan. 31 at his home. Since 1991, he was of counsel in the Tampa office of Johnson Pope Bokor Ruppel & Burns LLP.
Born Feb. 21, 1931, Lawson earned bachelor's and law degrees from Washington and Lee University. In the late 1950s to early 1960s, he served in Hillsborough County as an assistant state attorney and assistant county solicitor. He also served as special counsel to the Hillsborough County Commission when it drafted its home rule charter.
He is survived by his wife, Judy Polk Lawson; two sons, John Ryle Lawson III and Richard Polk Lawson; and one grandchild.
Away-from-home movie
As if the Tampa Bay area hasn't had enough gangsters pass through over the years, there might be some celluloid ones coming to town.
Ziad Ahmed, a Moroccan-born actor and screenwriter, hopes to start shooting a mob movie called "Real Premonition" on Feb. 11.
Most of the flick is supposed to be filmed in the United States, specifically in Clearwater, Safety Harbor, St. Petersburg and Tampa. Next month, a few other scenes will be filmed in Morocco.
Ahmed has a $1 million production budget, but he acknowledged he has raised only about 10% of that so far, mostly from family and friends.
"There can be some cutting of corners," says Ahmed, 44, who lives in St. Petersburg.
Ahmed and Sheri Lawrence, another Bay area resident who is helping to produce the motion picture, say they have set an ambitious June release date.
Just don't look for their effort in an American theater anytime soon. The only distributor for "Real Premonition" that Ahmed has lined up right now is in Morocco.
"Gangster pictures are a dime-a-dozen over here," says Lawrence. "There's a big demand in Morocco. They love them."
Sweeps stake
Bay News 9, the regional all-news cable channel, really wants local eyeballs tuned in the next few weeks. There might be a grand in it for you.
The news operation for the Bright House Networks LLC-owned cable systems in Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas and Manatee counties is offering the chance to win $1,000 to any viewer who fills out a survey and submits it to Bay News 9's Pinellas Park studios by Feb. 23.
Why ply viewers with a questionnaire in February in order to get them to watch your station? This month is an important ratings period, when the number of viewers a station attracts will determine how much advertisers are charged for commercials this spring.
Bright House Networks, a unit of East Syracuse, N.Y.-based media conglomerate Advance/Newhouse Communications Inc., is particularly interested in jacking up the ratings for Bay News 9's morning newscasts. Thus, most of the 10 survey questions pertain to those shows.
Viewers are even asked to rate anchors Jen Holloway and Leigh Moody, on a scale of one to nine. Just how they should be evaluated is not specified.
A gimmick? Sure, this is TV, after all. But not a bad one and, considering a single $1,000 cash prize will be awarded after a scheduled March 4 drawing, it's also a relatively inexpensive gimmick.
Melinda Bacon, Bay News 9's marketing director, didn't return a telephone call before deadline to accept Coffee Talk's congratulations.
Big shoes to fill
Laura Prather says she has a tough act to follow. She just replaced Ed LaRose as head of the employment law practice at Tampa's Trenam Kemker Scharf Barkin Frye O'Neill & Mullis PA. LaRose recently earned an appointment to the 2nd District Court of Appeal.
Prather, a member of the firm since 1994, joins four other female attorneys who serve in management roles at Trenam Kemker. Marie Tomassi co-chairs the commercial litigation group; Roberta Colton, bankruptcy and creditors' rights; Roberta Casper Watson, ERISA, employee benefits and compensation law; and Karen Lewis, who serves on the firm's three-member management committee.
As a group leader, Prather supervises a staff of 16 employment and labor law attorneys and five paralegals.
Your free article limit has been reached this month.
Subscribe now for unlimited digital access to our award-winning business news.
Join thousands of executives who rely on us for insights spanning Tampa Bay to Naples.
