STUART — The city of Stuart continued Monday to close in on the purchase of Arthur’s Dockside Waterfront Restaurant property adjacent to City Hall with commissioners authorizing just more than $4 million for the deal.

“We’re 98 percent of the way there at this point in time,” said Stuart City Manager Dan Hudson. “There’s only about one other item to nail down.”

Since agreeing to the purchase in December, the city has been negotiating with lien and mortgage holders on the property to arrive at a final price.
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Rodney Davis

A registered sex offender is behind bars on $1 million bail after he repeatedly forced a St. Lucie County girl to have sex with him since she was 12, authorities said.

The girl, now 16, told St. Lucie County Sheriff’s investigators that Rodney E. Davis had been abusing her since he was released from prison in 2004.

At that time, he had been serving a seven-year, three-month sentence after he had been found guilty in 1998 of sexually abusing a teen and other charges, state records show.

The girl told deputies Davis, 39, forced her to have sex with him and perform sexual acts throughout a four-year span.

Davis, of Fort Pierce, faces four counts of sexual battery and is being held at the St. Lucie County jail.

Staff researcher Niels Heimeriks contributed to this story.