Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone.

I don't have any new updates for the area but I did wish to express my appreciation to those that have taken the time to read my posts and share comments. Thank you very much.

I hope that you all have a wonderful holiday season!

Starbucks II

In case you haven't passed it, Starbucks II on CR 210 is now open. This is the location right by I95 on the west side of I95. I'm calling it II as the original one is back west a mile or so. So far there haven't been any major impacts to traffic with them opening this new location. But we are right before the holidays and I'm sure that traffic is a little lighter than normal and many people probably didn't realize that this location opened.

I haven't stopped there yet - and probably won't for a while. Like many new stand alone Starbucks, this location offers a drive through so you won't have to get out of your car for that Double Skinny Espresso Latte - whatever that is. What ever happened to coffee with cream and sugar? Man I must be getting old!

The unique feature about this location is that the drive thru will be open 24hrs a day. So you can get your coffee oops, I meant latte at any time you want. 2am and feeling thirsty for that Frap, now head on down the road.

I really see this as a bonus for those people that heading down the highway and see the 24hr sign for Starbucks. I imagine a lot of people will pull off only to get confused as how you actually can get to it without having to make a U-turn.

Perhaps on my drive home tonight I will stop for that eggnog latte. All I have to do is get of I95, get into the left lane and make a U-turn. Go through the drive thru, get out and head east and make a U-turn at the truck stops to head back home. Sounds like fun. Hopefully I won't get run over as I make the U-turns while sipping my coffee and yapping on my cell phone. (Sorry, I plunge into another annoying habit of so many people these days.)

Thanks for reading and don't cut me off coming out of Starbucks II!

Avenue's Walk

If you drive on I95 you probably wonder what is that they are building up near the Avenue's Mall. I'm talking about the area just east of I95 north of 9a / 295.

It's another shopping center!

Ok, this goes outside of the area that I normally report on but I figured that a lot of people from St. Johns drive past this construction area daily (like me) and wondered what it was. Here are some details about this center...

Location
I-95 & US 1 (Phillips Hwy) Jacksonville , FL
Features
586,495 sq. ft. retail center
3,500 feet of frontage on I-95.
Across from top performing regional mall in the market (Avenues).
Mixed use project containing retail, residential, hotel, and office.
Construction of a flyover with direct access from US 1.

I think that last item is very interesting. I'm very concerned with the amount of traffic that can build up in this area normally. But think about the congestion during the holiday's. Next Christmas could be very interesting.

It sounds like it will be another center like St. Johns Town Center. An outdoor shopping experience. It has plans for 400 hotel rooms, over 1000 housing units, and 600,000 sq ft of retail.

If you want to know more about this project, visit the developer's website...

www.kimcodevelopers.com

Creeks Soccer Registration

Directly from the Creeks website...

Registrations will be taken from October 15th until December 14th. After December 14th a late fee of $25.00 will be imposed until January 6th at which time registration for the spring season will be closed. Historically CAA Creeks soccer registration "sells out" and waiting lists are formed, so don't delay your child's sign up.

http://caasoccer.org/

This is a great soccer league for the kids. We've been doing it for a couple of years now and it has been a wonderful experience for them and the parents. Fun is the focus of the league.

BLOGLINES

Ever find a good website that you need to check back on from time to time. Perhaps like this website? Well a great tool for collecting information into a single place exists. Bloglines does a really good job of collecting feeds from many different websites. You can customize your feeds however you want. All of the different websites that you visit are accumulated in a simple easy to read format. Now you don't have to click on all different websites to see if there are any updates. If there are new posts, the posts will show up on your custom page and it will indicate that there are new posts.

I've been using Bloglines for some time and have been quite pleased. You can find my site listed under Bloglines too. Just search for the feed and you can have my site and others at your fingertips. As I don't post that often, you will immediately see when I have posted a new update without having to come to my site all the time to see if there are any updates.

Give it a try. Best part, it is free.

http://www.bloglines.com

http://stjohnsfl.blogspot.com/

JOHNS CREEK PROFESSIONAL CENTER

You may have noticed some new construction going on near Hurricane Wings. This is going to be a new office building. Per the building permits, it will be called "JOHNS CREEK PROFESSIONAL CENTER". It is expected to be a medical facility with about 10,000 SQ FT of space.

No word on who may move into the building at this point. Probably way too early for that.

Hurricane Wings

I know I've my comments several times about them, but I just can't get enough of these wings. I love most of the sauces that they have. I've even tried the different category 5 wings - HOT!!!

One of my favorite items is the Shanghai salad with shrimp. I'm not a big salad person, but I really like this one. It has a great dressing and very tasty fried shrimp.

The only drawback is the size of the place. They have a nice patio outside but the interior is pretty small. Luckily I usually get my wings to go so that I can feed the family at home.

I see on their website that they are planning another location in this section of Florida up in S. Ortega. No word on exactly where yet. But I may need to go there for lunch some days!

Go Hurricane Wings!

Good Bye Cold Stone Ice Cream

Sorry to see them leave, but Cold Stone Ice Cream on Cr210 near Publix closed their doors in October for good. Not sure why they shut down but my kids are sad to see them gone. Great ice cream but a little expensive. I think one of the things that really hurt them is that there wasn't a lot of room for people to sit around and enjoy it. The store had some indoor seating but no outdoor seating. That made it tough for when you bring a group of kids there and you try to keep them together and happy.

The location up in JCP is still open. That location has an outdoor patio which is ideal for kids and groups. Too bad the 210 store didn't have the room.

I'll tell you the one thing that is happy with them closing... my waist line! :)

Kim's Nails

Guess what is opening soon? Kim's Nails is located behind McDonald's on the West side of CR210. Just what we need, another nail salon. Let's see, we have one by Chocolate Meltdown, one near Ginger Bistro, another near Publix and probably a couple near Winn Dixie. Wow! There must be a lot of people with bad fingers and toes here in NW St. Johns County.

Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with a person trying to start a business and make a buck. But how many of the same type of business can we sustain in a short stretch. For the business owners, I hope that they all do well. I just can't see how so many of these nail salons can survive.

Latest on 210

It's been a while since my last post. It has been relatively quiet on CR 210 lately. The exterior of Starbucks at i95 has been completed. Now we are waiting on the interior buildout. Suprisingly, The St. Johns Sun just started noticing it. I saw a blog on this today. They should have come to me as I dropped this news months ago.

NONNA'S CUCINA ITALIANA is planned to be built on CR 210 behind the "new" McDonalds outside of Johns Creek. No details at this point about the type of food (i.e. $$), but it sounds good. How many Italian places can we maintain on 210? We have Jenks and Bistro V already. Where will this place fit into the blend?

Indulge Salon has been underway for a while. This is also in the same strip. Looks like a day spa from what I've seen.

Doodle Doos and Dinner Diva are now both open for business.

There is also some discussion at the County Commish level about a new development being planned off Russell Sampson Rd. The biggest concern of course is the amount of traffic that would get dumped back onto CR 210 and then to I95.

That's it for tonight.

Twins Part II

Did you know that the Timberlin Creek Twins now made it nationally? Good Morning America visited TCE on Friday and Today. Marysol Castro of GMA did a live broadcast from TCE with the twins. The story is available on the GMA website. See the video "Seeing Double, 34 times over".
http://abcnews.go.com/gma

Twins at Timberlin Creek Elementary School

Did you know that there are 31 sets of twins at Timberlin Creek. Plus a set of quintuplets. This remarkable information recently came to light. As a result, the TCE multiples were recently featured in the news. First the St. Augustine Record ran a feature article last Sunday listing out all of the kids. Here is a link to this article... http://staugustine.com/stories/090907/news_4819748.shtml

Then First Coast News jumped on the band wagon and ran a short segment during the 5:30 news this past week. The article and video can be found here...
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/news-article.aspx?storyid=91241

Here are to the Twins and Quintuplets at TCE!

Race Track Road Widening

As many of you have probably have seen, Race Track Road is being widened to handle the volume of traffic headed to/from US1. This should be a welcome relief for many of the people in JCP.

But what about the backlog at US1 from Race Track? I have often been stuck in that backup for some time. Not sure how much of a help it will be, but there will be a new connector that will connect Race Track Road with St. Augustine Rd. Bartram Park Blvd. will run from Race Track Rd up to St. Augustine Rd. once the widening project has been completed. This should help out a lot of people as they will head up that way to get to I95. This should also benefit Bartram Springs residents as it gives them another option for going north. Of course the ideal would have been an entrance / exit at Race Track Rd for I95 but from what I've heard, the county / FDOT doesn't believe that there is enough room to add the ramps.

If you want to read more, click on this link to go to the St Johns Sun... http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/090807/nes_197571823.shtml

Dinner @ Gaya

As you probably know, Gaya opened quite a while ago. Until today, I haven't had an opportunity to visit the Japanese Steak & Sushi restaurant. But I finally got there today. As with most teppanyaki places, it came with the usual. Our meal started with the typical mushroom soup followed by the ginger salad. We also ordered some sushi and edamame. My wife and I each ordered the steak and scallops. Two of my kids ordered the steak and the other one ordered the shrimp.

The sushi was very good. I ordered a couple of pieces of maguro (tuna) while the rest of the family enjoyed some California roll. The only problem was that they had the high sodium soy sauce at the table. I've grown accustomed to the low sodium variety. Surprisingly, it took a long time for the edamame to arrive.

Our chef did the typical show on. He lit the table on fire, he created the volcano which then turned into a train. He also did several other kid favorite tricks.

Overall, I thought that we had a very good meal at a decent price. It's probably as good as most of the other Japanese steak houses. I'd say give it a try.

Good Bye Byron

It's official. The Jaguars released Byron.

I've never been much of a Byron Leftwich fan. While I give him credit for being able to stand in the pocket and take a hit and get right back up. I just didn't think that he was ever that sharp with his passes and showed very little touch.

Too many times it appeared that he had to wind up for even short screen passes. While he kept his interceptions down, he appeared to be content with throwing a ball away vs. being able to find the open receiver. And when you rifle the ball into your receiver, it makes it difficult to hang on to the ball especially when you are about to take a big hit. Not that I think that the receivers that he has to work with has been very good. Just about all of them seem to have stone hands.

Long term, I don't think David Garrard will be the man to lead Jacksonville to a championship. What really disappoints me is that JAX didn't even try to improve themselves during the draft or through free agency. Brady Quinn appears to be the real deal (against 3rd stringers). He will probably be starting by week 4 up in Cleveland.

There are some rumor talks about Mark Brunell coming back to the Jaguars. While I think we could use a good veteran on the bench to help coach David and Quinn Gray mature, I would rather look more long term.

Well good luck to all of us Jaguar fans. I think the offense is improved with Garrard behind center as long as he doesn't try to do too much. It cost us last year. He has looked so much better this year. Hopefully he is maturing much the same way that we had hoped that Byron would.

Until next time...

CR2209 Now Open

Well I missed it. I missed the grand opening of CR 2209 or should I say St Johns Parkway. Either way, this new road will sure make the connection between Race Track Rd. and CR 210.

For those that haven't traveled it yet, CR 2209, er St Johns Parkway runs pretty much straight North and South. There is a traffic light a couple miles north of CR 210 where it meets up with Russell Sampson and then another couple of miles up to Race Track Rd.

My biggest concern with the road is the potential volume of people that will head south to eventually take I-95. With the new developments (Aberdeen and Durbin Crossing) well underway, will those people come down to CR 210 or would they go up to Race Track. Sometime in the future, there will be a new road connecting Race Track Rd. with St Augustine Rd. Seems a good part of that has been built. But the final connection to Race Track seems to be far away.

At least it will make it getting to the soccer fields and such that much easier.

Hurricane Wings

Awesome Wings. I've been there 4 times now. I love the hot wings (category 3). My kids love the regular teriyaki. We've also tried a number of other flavors. Most have been outstanding. We tried the Jerk wings last night. They were very good but they kind of ruined the flavor for the other wings we got. I'm working my way up to the Cat-5 wings!

Doodle Doos & The Dinner Diva

So what's happening on CR 210? How about a new place called Doodle Doos. Doodle Doos is located in the Winn Dixie shopping center in suites 304 & 305. I really don't know what this place is other than seeing a similar shop named in NY. In NY, Doodle Doos is a kid hair place. I imagine that if this is the same, it would be like Sharky's over in Bartram Park in JCP. Per county records, the place has been given permits to build out the interior and put up their sign.

Across the street, a new place called The Dinner Diva is being built out. A permit for a wall sign has been granted. Again, I can't find out too much information about this place. So we'll wait to see what develops. I imagine that this will be like some of the other pre-made dinner places.

Starbucks Part II

Over the past several months, we had a new Starbucks open up on CR 210 near McDonalds and Chicago Pizza. Well did you know that we are going to get a second one on the west side of CR 210. The old gas station that was cleared on the south west corner of I95 and Fireworks Alley will get a new Starbucks with a drive thru.

A couple of questions come to mind about this location. First, there is no left turn into it from westbound traffic. I hope that was by design. That is probably a good thing as trying to cut across CR 210 at that point will be certain disaster. Now if it is like most Starbucks, I'm sure it will get a ton of traffic. How will people be able to merge back onto CR 210 and then head north on I95. That will be very interesting.

We will see what happens!

Hurricane Wings Opened Today

Today is the opening of Hurricane Wings on CR 210 in the shopping center with Ginger Bistro and Starbucks. The menu looks great. I've heard from a bunch of people that have had their wings at other locations and they have said that they are great. You can get over 20 different types of wing sauces. You also have the option of getting it on things other than chicken. I won't get there today, but perhaps tomorrow I will get an opportunity to sample their wings and sauces.

Check the franchise out on the web... http://www.hurricanewings.com/

Roads Named

Well, the new name are in for the new roads in NW St. Johns. Drum roll please...

• CR 2209 is now called St Johns Parkway. What an originnal name! Actually, it probably is a good name considering it will run from Racetrack road all the way south to 208.
• CR244 is now Longleaf Pine Parkway. This connects Racetrack down to CR233.
• CR233 is now Veterans Parkway. This runs from CR 2209 down to CR210 near Bartram High.

Click here for the official county announcement... http://webappserver1.co.st-johns.fl.us/bcc/PublicRelations/PressReleasesRepo/Media/NewRoadNames.pdf

Longleaf Pine and Veterans are now open per the county website. Now if we can just get them to finish St Johns Parkway!

Latest News from NW St Johns, Fl

Sorry that I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy between family activities, work and whole mess of other things.

So what's new since the last post...

Bourbon Bayou has shut down. After a short stay on CR210, they have packed it in and shut down the doors. But all is not lost on the bayou. They are reopening down at the Jacksonville Landing. That really doesn't help us down here in St Johns, but they might do better up there.

About 15 acres of land were cleared on CR210 a bit west of Daily's gas station. I still haven't found out what is planned for that section. As soon as I hear, I will post some information.

Speaking of Daily's, I'm sure that everyone knows that the cut through from the Vinings was shut down and barricades put up. That stopped a lot of morning traffic from cutting through that development, the gas station, and shopping center and coming out by CVS.

We are still waiting for CR 2209 to open. Today they were laying a new layer of asphalt. Hopefully this is the last layer and they can paint the lines and open the road. Definitely will help this soccer dad going to the new ballfields up in Aberdeen. The county website states completion is scheduled for Summer 2007.

Construction on Hurricane Grill and Wings continues. No ETA for that.

Gaya finally opened! This is the Japanese Steak House by Johns Creek behind McDonalds. I haven't tried it yet but plan to go soon.

The liquor store relocated from the shopping center across from Winn Dixie to the Publix shopping center.

This is the last week of school for St Johns County. I can't wait until next week when traffic should be significantly better.

Until next time...

Hurricane Wings & Gaya

Hurricane Wings has started construction near the Starbucks on CR 210. They filed out the necessary permits and seems that things are underway. So now we will have 3 wing places on CR 210 not counting places like Publics or Cherry's.

While things are going on at the wing place, what it going on at Gaya's Japanese Steakhouse. Boy this seems like the longest construction project around. The last time I looked, the place seemed to be near construction. Not sure what the hold up is.

Next to Starbucks is a new real estate office. That is just starting up. That should be open in a few months.

That's all for now. Until next time.

Alex's Lemonade Stand

Keep the date open, May 5th. On that date, the Adventure Princesses and Guides program of the YMCA will be hosting a local fund raising effort for Alex's Lemonade Stand. This is a great charity to help children with Cancer. In addition, funds will also be raised to support the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund.

Information about both of these charities can be found on their websites...
www.alexslemonade.org
http://www.tcjayfund.org/

This fund raiser will be done at many local Publix markets including the one on CR 210.

More information will be posted as it becomes available.

Hope to see you there!

NW St Johns Roads

Have you taken an opportunity to drive down the new roads yet in NW St Johns? Over the last couple of weeks I have gone around the barricades to look at the new developments in the area.

First, we have the reopened Russell Sampson road. The northend of this road is really nice. The south end of Russell Sampson could use some improvements. Perhaps after CR 2209 opens. Speaking of CR 2209, the top part of Russell Sampson is 2209. The next piece will go down towards Publix on CR 210. That will make it real convenient for people to get between JCP and 210. CR 223 and 244 also appears done but for some reason are not open yet.

Another item in the works is the extension of Bartram Park from St. Augustine Road down to Racetrack Road. This is currently underway. Hopefully that will be finished this year. That could really help out the JCP families getting onto I95 north.

The new sports fields are being built just south of Race Track Road. You can always check out information on the CAA Soccer website (www.caasoccer.com).

Now if we can just get the county to move on fixing the I95 and CR 210 interchange disaster. Last I heard, there are delays for starting the exit from I95 project. Of course we already saw that the county painted a second line to "stop" the "cutters" from cutting over from the right lane to the left lane at the entrance. How about just extending the length of time for the green light so that more cars can get through in the morning and evening?

That's about it for this time. Hope your commute isn't too bad!

Later!

SJSO @ I95 and CR210

Another painfully slow ride in this morning. After watching the kids get onto the bus it was time for me to get to work. So down CR210 I go until just before Winn Dixie when all things come to a grinding halt. Ok, maybe not completely stopped but barely moving.

The left lane creeps along at a snails pace. Those drivers are usually right on the tail on the person in front. The reason is that if you give any room, the drivers in the right lane will use the opportunity to cut you off so that they can get onto I95 north. This is the status quo for many drivers.

Either way - IT SUCKS! The only way it seems to beat the game is to leave before 7am. Not a good possibility as I need to wait for my kids to get on the bus at 7:15am.

Today was worse than normal. We had the usual people cutting people off near the entrance of I95. But the big difference was that the St. Johns Sheriff Office (SJSO) was out in force. They had a bunch of cars pulled over on the entrance ramp. I imagine that they were pulling over the cars that waited until the very last point before cutting over and the diligent officers were pulling over these hardened criminals.

Either way, the situation needs to change. It takes nearly 30 minutes to go 2 miles today. More and more homeowners are moving into the area. CR 2209 will be opening soon too. I imagine more JCP residents will come down to get on I95. Something has got to give.

A few months ago, an article in the Times Union mentioned that the exit ramp from I95 to CR210 was going to be revisited in order to prevent a catastrophe from occurring with the cars backed up on I95. Hopefully something is done with the entrance before someone goes postal!

See you in the traffic jam!
BD

Bourbon Bayou Update

We ate dinner at Bourbon Bayou earlier this evening. We started with a couple of hurricanes - good but a little sweet. The place is moderate in size. They have a full service bar and many tables. The kitchen in the back seemed to be quite busy. The place was just moderately decorated but comfortable. Two big fish tanks are there to greet you as you walk in the door. This helped to keep the kids entertained while waiting for the good.

We started by splitting an order of gumbo. It took a little while before it came out but was nice and hot. It was very good, just enough spice and the right texture.

My main course was the shrimp Etoufee. This too was very good although I like it spicy. So I had to add a bit of hot sauce. My spouse had the Cajun trio combo. The blackened catfish was too salty. The shrimp creole and crawfish etoufee were pretty good. After I polished off the hurricane, I opted for a Blue Moon on draft. This matched my meal very well. My son went with the kids fried shrimp combo which was served with fries. Decent for a kids meal.

The manager; Al; made his rounds before dinner came out. We talked for a bit about the place and how it fits a unique niche in this neighborhood. He let us know that in the near future that they will also be offering delivery to the local area. He also said to let him know if anything is up to par. Their official grand opening is scheduled for February 5th.

As we were finishing off our dinner, the band arrived. They were waiting for some tables to be cleared out so that they could set up their equipment. Unfortunately we were done before they could begin playing.

Overall I thought the food was good and the prices reasonable. I'm looking forward to another trip there soon!

Best wishes to the Bourbon Bayou.

CR2209

Per the county's website, the northern part of CR 2209 is about 80% complete. This is the section from CR210 up to Race Track Rd. It will be 4 lanes when complete.

The county states that it should be completed by this summer.

What will this do to traffic on CR210 come this summer? Will people from Julington Creek use this road to get to I95 especially during the morning rush hour?

The southern section is still in an engineering phase with the county trying to acquire the necessary land between CR 208 and SR 16.

Hurricane Wings

Looks like CR210 will be getting another wing place. Hurricane Wings has posted on their website a future opening for a place on HWY210. I believe that they mean CR210. I say this because I heard the same from employees from local service facilities. The popular opinion is that it will be headed to the same strip that Starbucks and Ginger Bistro is in.

Those from South Florida should be familiar with this place. There are a number of them located down there. I personally have never eaten in one but look forward to them opening. According to the website, they have a pretty large menu with lots of variety and a kids menu. For the wings, they have 5 different levels of temperatures from the bland to the extreme.

At this point, there seems to be no timeline for them opening. I haven't seen any activity at the store front.

Until more info comes along, you can find the website at... http://www.hurricanewings.com/

Bourbon Bayou

As you may know, Benny's Steak House shut down on CR 210 a while ago. Probably too much money for the average family in this area. Now in the same spot is a new restaurant that will be opening in the next couple of weeks. Bourbon Bayou is slated to open February 5th just in time for Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday. The website looks real good. The menu has many typical favorites with lots of choices. They have a kids menu but the selection hasn't yet been posted. Nightly events are planned and should keep all entertained. The prices seem reasonable and family friendly.

I can't wait to enjoy a hurricane and some gumbo!

Good luck to the owners!

The website is http://www.bourbonbayou.com

BEJING CAFE

Not sure if this news to you all, but I just found out that we have a new place coming into the CR210 Publix shopping center. The Bejing Cafe has filed building permits and construction has started in the "old" Quiznos location. I say old because Quiznos wasn't in there too long before it shut down. How many sub places do we need? Tough to compete with the deli at Publix!

Anyway, don't know much about the Bejing Cafe. My guess is that it will be a take out place.

Later!

Hello!

I thought that I would just drop a quick note to say hello and kick start things.

I've been living in NW St Johns County now for a couple of years and have often found it difficult to find things out. I'm talking about things such as new stores or restaurants or other tidbits for the NW CR210 area.

So, as I find things out I plan on posting that info here for the benefit of others. And please post any info that you find too so that others (and me) can learn more about this area.

That's about it for this post. Until next time... Later!