The city of Pensacola has given itself a to-do list for 2024, and part of that list includes a massive real estate proposal.
“I’ve come up with a list that I’m calling the 24 for 24,” said Pensacola mayor D.C. Reeves at his first press conference of the New Year announcing a list of projects that he hopes can be accomplished in the coming year along with all the regular services citizens expect from the city.
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“These are really our front-facing projects, in no particular order,” said Reeves. “I wanted this personally, for us to be able to look back in 2024 and say, God willing if we don’t have any storm events or something like that (which) could sidetrack us, this is a list of 24 things that we hope to either have completed or have made significant progress on.”
One of the big ticket items on that list is finalizing the future of the old Baptist Hospital property on E Street.
“We don’t expect that Baptist Hospital will be full of attainable housing at the end of 2024, but we expect that we will make significant progress towards that,” said Reeves.
To that end, the mayor has signed a non-binding letter of intent to accept the donation of the Baptist property from Baptist Health Care Inc. The city will need to raise $16.5 million to demolish and remediate the legacy Baptist campus.
The letter of intent was signed as a good-faith gesture by the city to show that if the money can be raised, then Pensacola will accept the donation of the property.
“Once our delegation was comfortable with this non-binding agreement that just shows that we are amenable to it, that will be enough for them to go and fight for those dollars in Tallahassee,” said Reeves.
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The mayor has also been conferring with Escambia County Commissioner Lumon May about what this project could do to the nature of this neighborhood.
“Commissioner May and I are very aligned on what happens in this neighborhood," he said. "Here is a transformational project, how do we protect and preserve the neighborhood and the needs of that neighborhood, which we know is a vulnerable one.”
Some of the issues being worked out are the availability of any attainable housing built, and making sure that it is offered to current residents first before being opened up to everyone. There are also environmental protections and employment opportunities to be worked out.
“That’s the direction," explained the mayor. "If there is going to be any city (or) county funding put into this (project), it’s going to be in the spirit of protecting and preserving the surrounding neighborhood."
“I have asked Baptist Hospital and my expectation is that they will have a financial commitment in addition to the donation of the property. Again, we will continue to see this play out. We’ll see what happens and what kind of funding can be procured at the state level.”
That said, before he will commit the city to this project, the mayor says the state’s share of the cost must be substantial.
“I will not ask the city taxpayer to take on the donation of property with environmental questions on it at half the money,” said Reeves. “I couldn’t do that. I treat the citizen’s tax dollar as if it were my own, and I would not sign up for taking on the unknowns and all the other things for those acres of property without having a significant majority of the money (coming from the state)."
The mayor says there are ways that the project could cost less, including renovating some of the existing buildings on the property, but it is too soon to come up with any sort of definitive “Plan B." The city’s letter of intent expires on July 1.
