Diageo moving office to Coral Gables

Diageo will move its Miami office to Coral Gables in the fall of 2013.

The world’s leading spirits company will move from its current office at Blue Lagoon when its lease ends and relocate to 396 Alhambra Circle in Coral Gables.

Diageo has 175 people based in its Miami office, the majority of whom work for the Latin American and Caribbean region that is headquartered in Miami. The company has signed a 10-year lease in Coral Gables at 296 Alhambra, which is owned by Agave Holdings. The 32,527 square foot office has received LEED Silver and Gold certification.

“The new office is an important hub for not only Diageo North America, but also serves as the gateway to Latin America and our successful – and growing – business there,” said Randy Millian, Diageo President, Latin America and Caribbean. “We are excited to join the Coral Gables community.”

With the completion of the Diageo lease, the 282,000-square-foot Coral Gables office building is now 65 percent lease just one year after its opening. Diageo will join a roster of existing tenants that includes HBO Latin America, Millicom International Services, law firm Richman Greer, Banco Pichincha and CitiBank

“The addition of Diageo strengthens 396 Alhambra’s standing as the Class A address of choice for major multinational users in the Coral Gables market,” said Danet Linares, executive vice president at Blanca Commercial Real Estate, which represented Agave in the transaction.

“Diageo’s decision to relocate to Coral Gables reaffirms that the area is a vibrant business center for the greater Miami area,” said Jose Antonio Perez Helguera, managing director for Agave Holdings.

Danet Linares and Andres del Corral of Blanca Commercial Real Estate represented 396 Alhambra in the transaction, while Joe Garvey of CLW Real Estate Group represented Diageo.

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Report on Dozier School raises new questions about deaths

About100 boys may have died between 1900 and 1960 at a controversial youth prison in the Florida Panhandle, including seven boys who perished following escape attempts, according to a new report that raises troubling questions about the now-shuttered Dozier School for Boys.

As state juvenile justice administrators seek to sell the Dozier property in rural Marianna, researchers with the University of South Florida conducted an exhaustive archeological and historical analysis of the site in an effort to locate the burial grounds of children. In a 114-page report released Monday morning, researchers conclude that a minimum of 98 children died at Dozier between 1911 and 1973.

The largest burial ground is on the north side of the prison camp, next to a garbage dump on what for years was called Dozier’s “colored” section. Though the cemetery holds 31 graves marked with PVC pipe crosses, the report said the markers do not correspond to the actual interments, and it is likely that more than 31 children are buried there.

Dozier, which opened as the Florida State Reform School on Jan. 1, 1900, remained in continuous operations until June 30, 2011, when the state Department of Juvenile Justice shut it down amid a years-long controversy over the physical and sexual abuse of children.

In the fall of 2008, a dozen middle-aged men from throughout the state came forward and said they were raped or mercilessly beaten — or both — at the Marianna campus. The “White House Boys” — as some of the men dubbed themselves after the squat white-washed cottage where they were whipped, sometimes 100 times or more — have since spawned at least two books and a movement to extract some type of compensation from the Florida Legislature.

In October 2008, about a half-dozen of the men returned to Dozier. There, DJJ administrators, along with staff working there at the time, dedicated a plaque outside the building and planted a young crepe myrtle tree alongside the now decrepit White House building. Some of the men sobbed as they toured the inside of the cottage, where they described brutal beatings to a small gathering of reporters.

Records at Dozier that were reviewed by the university show that 54 children people were buried on the school grounds, and 31 were shipped elsewhere for burial. School administrators did not record the burial location for 22 other children.

Prison records suggest administrators may have minimized the number of deaths that occurred there in reports to the state — especially when it came to white children.

Biennial reports to state lawmakers early in the 20th century “often listed fewer deaths than what is listed in the school ledgers,” the report said. In a July 1926 report, for example, the school superintendent told lawmakers that four children had died in 1925 and 1926 — all of them black youths. But school ledgers showed six children had died during that time, including two white boys.

One of the boys whose death was not listed in 1926 was a child named Thomas Curry, a white boy who, a death certificate says, died of blunt trauma to his head. Records said Curry died away from the prison campus after he escaped.

Records suggest boys who escaped from the North Florida prison often met a violent death: two boys who escaped died of blunt trauma, and two died of gunshot wounds to the head or chest. Two children died in collisions involving cars; one was listed as having been “run over by [an] automobile.”

Even in death, the black children at Dozier received unequal treatment: African-American children were three times more likely to be buried in an unspecified location than were their white peers, the report said.

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RIM teases BlackBerry 10 launch with image of first BB10 smartphone

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Beyonce Inks $50 Million Deal With Pepsi

Pepsi is back in business with Beyonce Knowles, and it only cost them $50 million!

The Super Bowl XLVII half-time headliner, 31, will be featured in a new Pepsi commercial and several appearances for the brand, The New York Times reports, but in addition, the company will also be involved in a few of Beyonce's creative projects.

Pepsi will promote Queen B's tour next year as well as the release of her new album in 2013.

RELATED PIC: Beyonce to Perform at Super Bowl Half-Time Show

This isn't the first time Beyonce and Pepsi have worked together. Check out the pop princess' 2003 commercial, below:

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'Batman shooter' asked for notebook days after theater massacre

CENTENNIAL, Colo. - Authorities say that attorneys for the Colorado movie shooting suspect called the University of Colorado four days after the attack and asked the school return a package that James Holmes had sent to his psychiatrist.

CU Police Chief Douglas Abraham said the call alerted them to the presence of the unopened package in the campus mail room. He made the disclosure during a hearing Monday.

Holmes was silent during the hearing. He is charged with killing 12 people and injuring 58 others in a crowded theater in July.

AFP/Getty Images

James Holmes

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AutoNation: Back in the fast lane with expansion, higher sales

• AutoNation’s announcement December 4 that it was acquiring six auto stores in Texas, its second most important market after Florida, forms part of the company’s national growth strategy.

• AutoNation operates in 15 states and, according to CEO Mike Jackson, prefers to build its brand network in existing markets rather than expand to new markets. It grows either by acquisitions or by obtaining new franchises from manufacturers. Some recent acquisitions:

• The purchase of Audi, Chrysler, Dodge Ram, Jeep, Porsche and Volkswagen dealerships in the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth markets, announced December 4, is projected to increase the company’s revenue by about $575 million per year in the Lone Star State, which accounted for 20 percent of revenue last year. The outlets are expected to sell about 14,000 new and used autos this year.

• In early 2011, AutoNation bought a Toyota dealership in Fort Myers with annual sales of $135 million.

• In 2006, the company made its largest purchase prior to the December acquisition: a Mercedes-Benz store in Pompano Beach that had annual revenues of $230 million.

Source: AutoNation

South Florida auto dealers

Despite an agonizingly slow economic recovery, the country’s largest auto retailer, Fort Lauderdale-based AutoNation, is thriving again as demand for vehicles expands.

The company, one of Florida’s largest, is posting increasingly strong profits and revenues. Just last week, in a sign of confidence, Autonation announced a major acquisition — buying six large auto stores in Texas — that will add about 700 employees to its national payroll of 19,400.

In announcing the deal Tuesday, which is expected to provide AutoNation with $575 million in additional revenues next year, the company’s CEO and chairman, Mike Jackson, expressed optimism about the prospects for continued growth in vehicle sales.

“You want to know what I’m thinking, look at what I do,” Jackson told viewers on CNBC’s Squawk Box program.

No information was released on the cost of the transactions, but in recent years auto dealerships sometimes sold for three to five times revenue, which would represent a significant investment for the company.

Tough times

To be sure, AutoNation has struggled through some tough times. It was battered by the Great Recession, which depressed sales and pushed the company into a $1.2 billion loss four years ago. As sales began to improve in 2010 and 2011, it was blindsided by a shortage of Japanese-made cars last year after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 shut down Japanese manufacturers of some essential components.

Since then, however, AutoNation has rebounded. Unit sales, revenues and profits all performed well in the first three quarters of this year, and the company expects new vehicle sales to continue their recovery nationwide, rising to the mid-14 million units this year, up from about 12.7 million in 2011. In the third quarter of 2012, AutoNation’s new car unit sales grew by 21 percent over the same period in 2011, doing better than an estimated 15 percent increase industry wide. November’s sales of new vehicles increased by 21 percent over November 2011 .

The big dealerships acquired sell Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen and Chrysler products in the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth markets. They are expected to sell 14,000 new and used autos this year, and will add substantially to AutoNation’s future sales.

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State scraps plan to have private vendors make license tags

TALLAHASSEE --
Backing away from a possible court fight, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles announced Friday that it will halt its attempt to bid license tag services to private vendors.

Tax collectors — who distribute state tags — and two manufacturing groups tried to block the change by lobbying elected officials and filing legal action against the department.

Highway Safety Chief Julie Jones had wanted to save money by paying private companies $31.4 million over two years to make tags and distribute mail and online orders, but she abandoned the idea under pressure from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, among others.

“We listened to what everyone had to say, considered questions that vendors posed and received information from our tax collector partners,” Jones said. “Based on the input, we have decided to withdraw [efforts to privatize].”

The decision will keep Florida out of administrative court, which is where it seemed headed Tuesday after department lawyers shut down tax collectors’ requests to retract its invitation to bidders.

Jones’ change of heart earned praise from Bondi, who said the department “did the right thing.”

Manufacturing company Avery Dennison and St. Petersburg-based PRIDE, a nonprofit organization that uses prisoners to manufacture tags, filed formal protests and met with state officials this week.

For them, the state’s decision may only be a temporary victory.

Stephen Hurm, an attorney for the state highway agency, told tax collectors Friday the department will not seek to privatize plate distribution but could reignite the push as early as January to bid out the manufacturing role.

The state may want to switch from raised tags to the more modern flat tags that are thought to be more legible for red light and toll cameras. PRIDE doesn’t have the equipment to make flat tags.

Hillsborough County Tax Collector Doug Belden says he will fight the state if it moves to exclude PRIDE.

“Why change a system that is working well and that customers enjoy? My job as an elected official is to provide the most friendly, capable customer service for the best price. We’re doing that,” said Belden, who criticized Jones for excluding tax collectors in her decisions.

Belden, along with PRIDE lobbyist Wilbur Brewton, argue that flat tags are no easier to read and are more expensive — which will result in more fees for motorists. The company may try to invest in new technology if that’s what it takes to continue working with the state, Brewton said.

“Is the equipment currently sitting in the plant to do it? No,” he said. “This could cause harm, but we would have to calculate that once we see the details.”

Jones hasn’t committed to any tag — flat or raised, she said. She just wants something legible and well-priced.

“We want to get the best product moving into the future in terms of technology, but at a cost that’s affordable,” Jones said. “This is going to be done in a cost-effective manner.”

The controversy over the tags is not expected to stall a planned redesign.

Floridians can continue to vote on four designs for a new state tag at Vote4FloridaTag.com. About 50,000 people have weighed in. The deadline is Dec. 14.

Brittany Alana Davis

can be reached at bdavis@tampabay.com .

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How They Pulled Off 'The Impossible'

The true story of the devastating 2004 tsunami that consumed the coast of Phuket, Thailand -- and how one family survived it -- is reenacted by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor in The Impossible. Watch the video to go behind the scenes...

Video: Tsunami Survivor Petra Nemcova Reacts to Latest Disaster in Japan

In theaters December 21, The Impossible finds Naomi as Maria and Ewan as her husband Henry, who are enjoying their winter vacation in Thailand with their three sons. On the day after Christmas, their relaxing holiday in paradise becomes an exercise in terror and survival when their beachside hotel is pummeled by an extraordinary, unexpected tsunami.

Video: Watch the Trailer for 'The Impossible'

The Impossible tracks just what happens when this close family and tens of thousands of strangers must come together to grapple with the mayhem and aftermath of one of the worst natural catastrophes of our time.

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'Skyfall' narrowly tops weekend box office with estimated $11 million

LOS ANGELES — James Bond is in a box-office photo finish with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

According to studio estimates Sunday, the Bond tale "Skyfall" took in $11 million to move back to No. 1 in its fifth weekend.

That puts it narrowly ahead of "Rise of the Guardians," the animated adventure of Santa, the Easter Bunny and other mythological heroes that pulled in $10.5 million.

The two movies inched ahead of "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2," which had been tops for three-straight weekends. The "Twilight" finale earned $9.2 million, slipping into a tight race for No. 3 with "Lincoln," which was close behind with $9.1 million.

AP

Daniel Craig in a scene from "Skyfall"

The only new wide release, Gerard Butler's romantic comedy "Playing for Keeps," flopped with $6 million, coming in at No. 6.

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Events showcase Miami’s growth as tech center

One by one, representatives from six startup companies walked onto the wooden stage and presented their products or services to a full house of about 200 investors, mentors, and other supporters Thursday at Incubate Miami’s DemoDay in the loft-like Grand Central in downtown Miami. With a large screen behind them projecting their graphs and charts, they set out to persuade the funders in the room to part with some of their green and support the tech community.

Just 24 hours later, from an elaborate “dojo stage,” a drummer warmed up the crowd of several hundred before a “Council of Elders” entered the ring to share wisdom as the all-day free event opened. Called TekFight, part education, part inspiration, and part entertainment, the martial arts-inspired program challenged entrepreneurs to earn points to “belt up” throughout the day to meet with the “masters” of the tech community.

The two events, which kicked off Innovate MIA week, couldn’t be more different. But in their own ways, like a one-two punch, they exuded the spirit and energy growing in the startup community.

One of the goals of the TekFight event was to introduce young entrepreneurs and students to the tech community, because not everyone has found it yet and it’s hard to know where to start, said Saif Ishoof, the executive director of City Year Miami who co-founded TekFight as a personal project. And throughout the event, he and co-founder Jose Antonio Hernandez-Solaun, as well as Binsen J. Gonzalez and Jeff Goudie, wanted to find creative, engaging ways to offer participants access to some of the community’s most successful leaders.

That would include Alberto Dosal, chairman of CompuQuip Technologies; Albert Santalo, founder and CEO of CareCloud; Jorge Plasencia, chairman and CEO of Republica; Jaret Davis, co-managing shareholder of Greenberg Traurig; and more than two dozen other business and community leaders who shared their war stories and offered advice. Throughout the day, the event was live-streamed on the Web, a TekFight app created by local entrepreneur and UM student Tyler McIntyre kept everyone involved in the tournament and tweets were flying — with #TekFight trending No. 1 in the Miami area for parts of the day. “Next time Art Basel will know not to try to compete with TekFight,” Ishoof quipped.

‘Miami is a hotbed’

After a pair of Chinese dragons danced through the audience, Andre J. Gudger, director for the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs, entered the ring. “I’ve never experienced an event like this,” Gudger remarked. “Miami is a hotbed for technology but nobody knew it.”

Gudger shared humorous stories and practical advice on ways to get technology ideas heard at the highest levels of the federal government. “Every federal agency has a director over small business — find out who they are,” he said. He has had plenty of experience in the private sector: Gudger, who wrote his first computer program on his neighbor’s computer at the age of 12, took one of his former companies from one to 1,300 employees.

There were several rounds that pitted an entrepreneur against an investor, such as Richard Grundy, of the tech startup Flomio, vs. Jonathan Kislak, of Antares Capital, who asked Grundy, “why should I give you money?”

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