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Island Brief

Amelia Island • Nassau County • First Coast

Good Morning, Nassau County! Brett's comes down this morning. The excavators are due at 9, and the city expects a crowd on the waterfront for the end of 41 years at the foot of Centre Street. Yulee spends tonight on data centers and Wards Creek.

The flood watch is now a warning. Plan around the morning high tide, which comes later each day this week, and expect the usual low spots to fill. Windy and 70 on the island, warmer inland.

Fernandina 🌤️ 70°/63° Yulee 🌤️ 72°/61°

Callahan ☀️ 74°/58° Hilliard ☀️ 75°/55°

Three coastal alerts are up for Coastal Nassau this morning: a Coastal Flood Warning until 2 a.m. Thursday, a High Surf Advisory with breakers of 8 to 10 feet until 8 a.m. Wednesday, and a high rip current risk through late Wednesday night. The water is the part that reaches people who never go near the beach: moderate to locally major tidal flooding around high tide today, then minor to moderate for the rest of the week. The morning tides are the big ones at the Fernandina Beach gauge, 9:21 this morning, 10:10 Tuesday and 11:03 Wednesday, with the evening tides about a foot lower. Today is windy and 70 on the island with a stray morning shower, 72 in Yulee and the mid 70s in Callahan and Hilliard; tonight stays in the 60s on the coast and drops to 55 in Hilliard. Tuesday and Wednesday run 75 to 81, mostly sunny and still breezy; Thursday is the one shower day, and the weekend looks mostly dry for Halloween. No tropical systems in the Atlantic.

📰	Top Stories

Demolition of Brett's Waterway Cafe is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. today at the foot of Centre Street, a little over a year after the restaurant served its last customers on Oct. 4, 2025 and 41 years after it opened on the city's marina pier. The city has been preparing for spectators along the waterfront and, in a memo the Observer quotes, asks that they stay contained for their own safety, so watch from behind the fencing on the park side rather than from the docks. The teardown is the first visible piece of the marina rebuild the commission approved in July: a roughly $9.66 million Baker Design Build contract that pulls more than 60 old pilings, replaces the bulkhead, builds a public pier out into the Amelia River and dredges an area nearly three times the size first proposed, with no replacement restaurant in the approved project. The engineers have already warned that what is buried under the old building, including concrete left from the structure that stood there before Brett's, could add cost once the digging starts; if you want a last look at the building, this morning is it.

Read More → Fernandina Observer

Here is the vote we told you Friday was still unreported: the Historic District Council voted 6-0 Thursday to give conceptual approval to nine three-story townhomes on the private parking lot at Front and Alachua streets. George Sheffield, a former council member speaking for the five McJunkin Station homeowners next door, asked for seven units instead of nine, or a 35-foot height, so that some of their river view survives the 7.3-foot gaps between the three buildings. The council's answer was that it cannot make a building shorter than the rules allow when the design complies, and this one does: about 36 feet above base flood elevation against the 45-foot maximum the CRA guidelines allow at that corner, with Tammi Kosack saying plainly that the low river view "is going to shift and change" as downtown gets denser. Downtown Crab LLC still needs final architectural approval and has to clear the June TRC list (emergency access, drainage, the railroad next door, a shared dumpster the neighbors also object to) before anything is built, and no timetable, cost or prices have been announced.

Read More → Fernandina Observer

The National Weather Service upgraded Coastal Nassau to a Coastal Flood Warning at 3:22 this morning, in effect until 2 a.m. Thursday, with moderate to locally major tidal flooding around high tide today and minor to moderate flooding for the rest of the work week. The morning tides are the ones that matter at the Fernandina Beach gauge: 9:21 this morning, 10:10 Tuesday, which is the highest of the week, and 11:03 Wednesday, with the evening tides running about a foot lower. Expect water on the usual low streets downtown, along the marsh and on the Intracoastal, some roads closed around those hours, and major beach erosion where 8-to-10-foot breakers meet a full-moon tide; the surf and the rip current risk make the beach a place to look at, not swim, all week. A gale warning covers the Atlantic waters into early afternoon, with gusts of 25 to 35 on land and a few closer to 40 on the coast, and the forecasters say the showers that drift ashore will be light and will not make the tides worse.

Read More → National Weather Service Jacksonville

Saturday's airport master plan open house drew neighbors from Parkway North and Crane Island with the complaint the city has heard for two years, the repetitive touch-and-go training that one resident called "maddening," and the consultants' answer was that the plan is not the place to fix it. AVCON's Mike Kotlow said the master plan will draw noise contours showing where existing and projected noise lands, and that reducing it "is a separate study that would need to occur." Written comment forms go into the plan's appendix and informal conversations do not, so if you talked to a planner Saturday and did not fill out a form, your comment is not in the record. The useful date is Wednesday, Nov. 4, when the City Commission gets a separate airport noise briefing at its election-week meeting; a second public open house is promised but undated.

Read More → Fernandina Observer

The county's day starts at 3 p.m. in Yulee with the first public workshop on the data center committee's 66-page draft report, the one that says regulate rather than ban and shuts data centers out of county incentives; nothing is decided at a workshop, and written comments stay open until Jan. 8. At 5 the regular meeting takes up the 379.81-acre Wards Creek rezoning off Old Nassauville Road again, continued from Sept. 28 after residents handed commissioners binders disputing the acreage and the marsh title; the agenda now carries revised site plans dated Oct. 15 and a redlined project narrative dated Oct. 21, so the applicant has changed something, and the hearing is quasi-judicial, which means sworn testimony and a decision on the record. Also on tonight's agenda: a $298,000 purchase of an improved parcel at 86079 Pages Dairy Road next to the Yulee Sports Complex for the complex's expansion, paid with impact fees, and whether to cancel the Nov. 23 and Dec. 28 meetings for the holidays. Back on the island at 6, the Waterfront Advisory Board votes on the revised Waterfront Park expansion concept we walked through Wednesday, the drawing with the relocated monument beside the boat ramp and no fountain.

Read More → Nassau County BOCC agenda

📍	Around Nassau County

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Bryceville: Thursday is the last day the Bryceville branch library is open, regular hours until the doors close. After that, staff stock an outdoor locker with items you place on hold through your online account, and the book drop stays; the county's stated reasons were usage, staffing, operating cost, hours and geographic coverage, in the budget the commission adopted 5-0 on Sept. 28. (More)

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Nassau County: The Chabad Jewish Center of Amelia Island goes to the county's Development Review Committee at 9 a.m. Tuesday with a pre-application for a sanctuary, office and commercial space and a dwelling unit; the agenda listing gives no address, so the site is the thing to learn. The same meeting signs off on Phase 1 of the JEA water treatment plant at Wildlight and the Quail Road Estates plat. (More)

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Yulee, Callahan and Hilliard: The west side does Halloween on both days. The county's Halloween Festival is Friday, 5:30 to 7:30, at 76347 Veterans Way in Yulee, free, with a trick-or-treat alley of local businesses and county departments, hayrides and a costume contest, per the county's Facebook event listing; Saturday brings the Halloween Bash at the county fairgrounds in Callahan, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., with a chili cook-off and a pie-eating contest, and Post 401's trunk or treat in Hilliard from 6 to 10, both per community listings, so confirm before you load the car.

➤	Fernandina Beach: The Pirates lost 20-15 at Episcopal on Friday and finish the regular season at Franklin County in Eastpoint this Friday at 7 p.m., carrying a 3-7 record into the last one.

📌	Briefly Noted

🗓️	This Week on the Island

Mon 26

Brett's demolition begins Fernandina Harbor Marina, foot of Centre Street • 9 a.m. • Watch from the waterfront park side and stay behind the fencing; the city asks spectators to keep clear of the work zone. High tide is 9:21, so the low spots on Front Street may be wet. Story & Song's free Vinyl Hour, The Eagles, is at 3.

Mon 26

Data center workshop, then Wards Creek, then the waterfront park vote James S. Page complex, 96135 Nassau Place, Yulee • Workshop 3 p.m., county commission 5 p.m. • Written data center comments are open until Jan. 8. The Waterfront Advisory Board meets at City Hall, 204 Ash St., at 6 for the Waterfront Park expansion concept.

Tue 27

County Development Review Committee James S. Page complex, Yulee • 9 a.m. • The Chabad sanctuary pre-application and the Wildlight water plant sign-off. The county's Economic Development Board meets in the same building 3 to 5 p.m., and author J. Brian Turk is at Story & Song at 2, free.

Thu 29

Bryceville library's last day Bryceville branch, 7280 Motes Road • Regular hours • The hold locker and book drop carry on afterward. That evening: "The Addams Family Musical" at 7:30 at ACT, and Story & Song's book group dinner with the publishers' reps at 5:30, $30.

Fri 30

Halloween Trick or Treat Downtown Centre Street • 10 a.m. to noon • Free; Main Street's shops hand out treats to kids of all ages, and it is Friday, not Saturday. Lobster Fest pickup follows, 1 to 5, in the Atlantic Rec Center lot (pre-orders closed Sunday), then the county's Halloween Festival in Yulee at 5:30 and the Pirates at Franklin County at 7.

Sat 31

Halloween, and the last day of early voting Any of the five early-voting sites • 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. • Bring a photo ID with your signature. The Farmers Market runs 9 to 1 on North 7th, StoryTime is 10:30 at Story & Song, the Addams Family closing matinee is at 2, and the Callahan Halloween Bash runs all day at the fairgrounds.

Sun 1

Jason Woods' "The Little Toy Shoppe" book party Story & Song, 1430 Park Ave. • 1:30 to 3 p.m. • $35 includes a signed copy and refreshments; Woods is the playwright behind Dickens on Centre's shows and "Bing!" The free acoustic guitar jam is at noon in the same room.

Brett's comes down this morning. What is your Brett's story: the table you asked for, the occasion, the sunset you still picture, the dish you would order one more time? We would like to collect them before the pilings are gone. Hit reply and let us know. We read every response.

Brett's was not the first thing built on that spot at the foot of Centre Street. What stood there before it, when did it open, and what did locals call it?

Answer: The Florida Marine Welcome Station, the state's welcome center for boaters arriving by water, dedicated in January 1963 and phased out in the 1980s. Locals called it "the teepee." The city took it down to build Brett's, and the marina project's engineers say its concrete base was never fully removed, which is part of what has been falling into the river for decades.

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