Gazette Daily News Podcast, October 4

Tuesday will be one more day with a high in the seventies before it cools down a bit the rest of the week. According to the National Weather Service, on Tuesday it will be mostly sunny in the Cedar Rapids area, with a high near 76 degrees. A south wind of 5 to 15 mph will gust as high as 20 mph. On Tuesday night it will be mostly cloudy, with a low of around 52 degrees. The wind will calm to a gentle breeze by day's end.

The state has agreed to pay a North Liberty couple nearly $4 million after their almost 2-year-old son died in 2018 from an undiagnosed strep infection following days of visits to University of Iowa-affiliated clinics and facilities.

The State Appeal Board on Monday unanimously approved a $3.99 million settlement with Scott and Melissa Keating, who filed their suit in 2019.

The family’s concerns started on February 15, 2018, when Jack Keating — who was just days away from his second birthday — came down with a fever and raspy breathing.

According to the couple’s lawsuit, over the next 3 days the family saw several different UIHC providers from UI Quick Care, to Pediatric Associates, to the UIHC emergency department. Despite the child’s worsening condition, none of the doctors diagnosed him correctly with what would end up being a fatal case of strep throat. Jack Keating died on the morning of February 19.

The Keatings in their lawsuit accused UIHC and its employees of negligence and failure to, among other things, properly assess, examine, test, diagnose and treat their son in a timely manner.

The Iowa City Marketplace was purchased for just under $14.3 million by a Tennessee-based company focused on redeveloping shopping centers.

CORE Realty Holdings of California sold the shopping center in late July to Brookwood Capital Advisors. A not-yet-disclosed chain store is anticipated to move into the vacant space that formerly housed Von Maur and Lucky’s Market once a lease is finalized.

The shopping center, formerly known as Sycamore Mall, is on Sycamore Street in southeast Iowa City. The shopping center was rebranded in 2013. The rebranding was intended to provide more areas for social interaction and turn the area into a social space by bringing together dining, entertainment and mixed use.

Brookwood Capital Advisors focuses on finding empty sites, leasing out the spaces and “setting the sites up for long-term success,” according to the group’s website.

After this year approving controversial utility-scale solar projects near Coggon and Palo while turning aside recommendations from their staff for a moratorium, the Linn County Board of Supervisors voted Monday on its first consideration to pause any more at least until the end of the year.

County staff has requested the moratorium in order to better refine the guidelines for the implementation of solar projects in Linn County.

The county said a three-month moratorium would provide a structure with check-ins on progress. The Dec. 31 deadline also would allow the current Board of Supervisors to decide on an extension before a new board is sworn in this January after the November elections.