Pensacola City Council on Thursday halted the city’s effort to move forward with a redevelopment advisory contract for the former Baptist Hospital campus, pulling the item from its agenda after hours of testimony warning that the process could accelerate displacement in nearby historically Black neighborhoods.
The move effectively reversed momentum from earlier in the week, when the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency — made up of the same elected officials sitting in a different legal capacity — voted unanimously to approve the advisory-services award. The council’s decision leaves the future planning process for the long-vacant hospital site unsettled, even as demolition and environmental abatement preparations continue.
What the Baptist site is — and why the city is involved
The former Baptist Hospital campus, often referred to by city officials as the “legacy campus,” occupies a large tract near several historically Black neighborhoods north of downtown. After the hospital closed, the city stepped in to guide redevelopment rather than leaving the property to private speculation.
City officials have said their goal is to prevent the campus from remaining vacant or being redeveloped without public input. To do that, the city has relied on its Community Redevelopment Agency, or CRA — a state-authorized entity that uses tax increment financing, known as TIF, to reinvest growth in property-tax revenues back into designated redevelopment areas.
While the CRA and City Council share the same members, they operate under different agendas and procedural rules. That distinction proved decisive this week.
What was under consideration — and what was not
The agenda item before both bodies was not a final development agreement or site plan. Instead, it involved awarding a contract to New-Orleans-based Bayou District Consulting LLC to serve as a redevelopment adviser, supported by several local partners. Those included SMP Architecture, led by former Pensacola City Council member Brian Spencer; Jerry Pate Design, a local landscape architecture firm; and Impact Campaigns, a communications and engagement firm. The team also included national firms providing environmental, planning, and market analysis support.
City staff described the role as a precursor to any future selection of a master developer. According to staff, the consultant would help organize public engagement, coordinate communications related to demolition, analyze redevelopment options, and prepare the groundwork for a later request for proposals that would invite developers to bid on the site.
At the CRA meeting, Pensacola Economic Development Director Erica Grancagnolo emphasized that the contract was structured in phases.
“The first 180 days will consist almost exclusively of communication and outreach activities,” she said.
The deliverable at the end of that period, staff said, would be a work plan for the next phase, which would return to the CRA and council for review.
Supporters of the approach argued that this structure gave elected officials multiple opportunities to stop or redirect the process before any irreversible decisions were made.
Why residents objected
That distinction did little to calm critics at either meeting.
Public speakers repeatedly argued that redevelopment decisions in Pensacola have historically been made before community meetings are held, rendering outreach exercises performative rather than substantive.
Among those speakers were a number of representatives of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, including PSL mayoral candidate Jasmine Brown.
"This project should have been community-led from the jump," Brown said, "not after the back door conversations ... We're sick of letting a handful of wealthy elite play games with this city."
Residents framed their concerns around indirect displacement — rising rents, higher property taxes, and cultural loss in surrounding neighborhoods — rather than removal of residents from the hospital site itself.
Several residents laid out specific demands they said must accompany any redevelopment process, including enforceable affordability requirements and protections for renters and homeowners. Speakers also called for community benefits agreements — legally binding contracts that would require developers to deliver specific public benefits, such as affordable housing, local hiring, or funding for neighborhood services — and for exploration of community land trusts, a model in which land is held by a nonprofit entity to keep housing permanently affordable and insulate it from speculative price increases.
“Anti-displacement must be non-negotiable," local educator Shernita Wiggins-Wynder said. “... Progress should never cost a community its people."
New Orleans experience becomes a flashpoint
A central fault line in the debate was Bayou District Consulting’s connection to post-Hurricane Katrina redevelopment in New Orleans, particularly the transformation of the St. Bernard public housing complex into the mixed-income Columbia Parc development.
Opponents described that project as a cautionary tale, arguing it displaced Black working-class families under the banner of revitalization.
"We should look at what happened with the St. Bernard residents as a warning," Brown said, "not a model for inspiration."
Bayou District representatives disputed that characterization.
At the council meeting, managing member Gerard Barousse, Jr. said Hurricane Katrina itself displaced the roughly 900 families who lived at St. Bernard, after the site was inundated with floodwaters for weeks. He said Bayou District was brought in about 18 months later, after the housing authority concluded the buildings could not be economically renovated.
Barousse said former residents were offered first right of occupancy and that the team reached about 90% of displaced households, though many chose not to return to New Orleans or to that community. He said more than 70% of units are low-income or affordable, and said later in questioning that 99% of current residents are African American.
Barousse also emphasized that Bayou District would not be developing the Baptist site.
“We’re not coming in to develop,” he said, describing the firm’s role as advisory and focused on engagement and planning.
Process and procurement concerns
Questions about how Bayou District was selected surfaced alongside concerns about its track record.
At the CRA meeting, board members asked why only one firm made an oral presentation. Staff responded that “the other two declined to come for the oral presentation,” and said oral presentations were scored independently of written proposals unless there was a tie.
Councilman Delarian Wiggins, whose district includes the Baptist site, also criticized the composition of the selection committee, which consisted of three city employees and one community member — former city councilwoman Jewel L. Cannada-Wynn.
"To me, it looks like a good old boy system that is not fair and equal," Wiggins said, "and this is why we have people standing up and saying it's not right.
A turning point on the dais
The council’s decision ultimately turned on Wiggins' position. At the earlier CRA meeting, several members signaled they would defer to his judgment. On Thursday, Wiggins framed the community’s skepticism as earned and said the city would need to demonstrate, through outcomes, that it was listening.
By the time of the council meeting, Wiggins said he could not support moving forward that night.
He told colleagues that “something shifted” after hearing residents describe “the hurt” they had experienced, and said he would “stand with” the community by opposing advancement of the contract.
Wiggins also stressed that demolition and environmental oversight remain pressing and could take many months. The demolition contract, he said, is already signed, and he did not want to “move too fast” on the redevelopment planning side.
Other council members expressed mixed views. Some argued that pausing the contract risked losing momentum and prolonging uncertainty at a major site. Others said rebuilding trust had to come first.
One member suggested breaking the effort into smaller steps, starting with public input before engaging an outside adviser.
As debate continued, Councilman Casey Jones raised a procedural point, noting that because the recommendation originated with the CRA, the mayor could not unilaterally withdraw it.
The chair ultimately agreed to pull the item from the agenda, preventing an up-or-down vote and halting the advisory contract from moving forward at that meeting.
What happens next
The council’s action does not resolve what will ultimately be built on the former Baptist Hospital campus. Instead, it resets the immediate question of how — and with whom — the city will structure its planning process.
Residents who opposed the contract said the pause was necessary but not sufficient. Among those voices was Chance Brummett, a homeowner who lives just blocks from the Baptist site.
“We aren’t asking you to make a decision we like,” he told councilmembers. “We are asking you to let us make the decision.”
City officials, for their part, have argued that without deliberate planning and subsidy, affordability goals will be difficult to achieve, and that leaving the site idle carries its own costs.
For now, the Baptist redevelopment remains in limbo, with demolition preparations moving ahead and the broader question of redevelopment authority, trust, and displacement still unresolved.
