As work gets underway on the new Baptist Hospital site on Brent Lane, the city of Pensacola is being asked to annex the property
In June, Baptist announced construction of a 250-bed hospital on Brent Lane at a cost of $550 million; completion is scheduled for 2023. The project involves a number of parcels near Interstate 110, which were acquired in the year before the announcement. All are currently in Escambia County.
“The primary advantage for us is to keep our properties under a single municipality; the main hospital, our medical office building – The Towers – and Lakeview’s campus are all under city limits,” said Baptist Health Care Vice President John Porter. He adds that they would like to keep that the same for the new Brent Lane campus, citing past zoning difficulties.
“There was a time that our campus here on E Street was literally split in half,” said Porter. “The north half was in the county, the southern half was in the city limits. And so there was continuous confusion; you would literally step out of The Towers, and you’ve stepped out of the city limits into the county.”
So the decision was made to place the entire Baptist site under one municipality, choosing the city of Pensacola. Over time, says Porter, they’ve developed some strong ties.
“[Pensacola PD] provide monitoring and coverage for our campus, in addition to our security force, Porter said. “And then they also provide supplemental coverage in our emergency department with off-duty officers. And we would just like to carry that to the Brent Lane campus.”
Baptist is seeking a C-3 zoning designation for all of the parcels in question. A C-3 zone is intended for general commercial use.
“We looked at C-1, [C-2] and [C-3]; as we look to the future we want to make sure that we’re not boxing ourselves in,” said Porter. “C-3 gives us the maximum level of flexibility when we decide what we would like to do with additional development.”
“I think it will be a great opportunity to expand the boundaries of the city of Pensacola, and continue our relationship with Baptist Health Care and Baptist Hospital,” said Mayor Grover Robinson, who added the city’s also working with citizens groups on what to do with the current campus once the new facility is open.
“I think we have an awesome opportunity to redevelop and revision what that is in West Pensacola,” the Mayor said. “Clearly, we would like some health delivery there, but I think obviously we can serve the health needs of the neighborhood without the overall larger campus. You don’t get many chances to rework [and] breathe life into a community and help in that area.”
Why annex into a city? Robinson says for one thing, there’s a better level of services offered.
“Inspections, our fire, our police,” said Robinson. “I think the county does an incredible job, but it has an incredible amount of space it has to do. The city is a smaller area; it allows us to do some services and do them more intensely. I think those are services that Baptist appreciates.”
The goal for the property, says Baptist VP John Porter, is to have the annexation in place before site work begins next June.
“It just gives us consistency, gives us [a] relationship that developed over the course of time and we can just carry it forward,” Porter said. “Then we will have both campuses – E Street and Brent Lane – under that one relationship with the city.”
The Baptist property appears to be halfway to annexation. Since no other property owners are involved, all that’s mandated is two consecutive votes by the City Council. The first was unanimous approval in mid-November. The second reading and vote are scheduled for the Dec. 10 meeting.