For nearly two decades, Pensacola’s Westside plans have envisioned turning the former American Creosote Works property in Sanders Beach into a public park. For now, that vision remains on hold — not because of design disputes or local opposition, but because the land is still contaminated and the federal government has not yet secured all the money needed to clean it up.
At a meeting this week, members of the Westside Community Redevelopment Agency said the Environmental Protection Agency is moving closer to starting the first phase of cleanup at the long-polluted site. But staff also told the board the project remains short $8.6 million and that a deeper, second phase of treatment has no funding at all, keeping the city from moving ahead with park construction and complicating decisions about buying the land.
The CRA is a special taxing district that uses dedicated funds to invest in targeted areas. The same elected officials who serve on City Council also serve as the CRA board, but in a separate legal role focused on redevelopment.
The American Creosote Works site once operated as a wood-treatment plant. The process used creosote, an oily wood preservative that can contain cancer-causing chemicals known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Over time, those chemicals seeped into soil and groundwater. Testing has also found contamination in some nearby residential yards. Because of those risks, the federal government placed the property on the Superfund list in the early 1980s.
Superfund is the EPA’s program for the nation’s most hazardous waste sites. Under that program, the EPA sets the cleanup plan and controls the funding and timeline. Local governments can plan for reuse, but they cannot build on the land until the agency signs off on the remediation.
The property sits inside the Westside CRA, and since 2007, the agency’s plans have identified it as a future public park or green space once it is safe for people to use.
Peter Thorpe, the EPA’s remedial project manager, told the board the cleanup is divided into two parts. Phase 1 is designed to reduce immediate exposure and stabilize the site. Phase 2 relies on thermal extraction, a more complex treatment that remains unfunded.
Phase 1 is moving toward construction, he said. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will manage the work. Contractors are expected to bid the project in March, with a contract award in May. If that schedule holds, crews would begin digging up contaminated yards in early summer.
“We project that to take about six months or so,” Thorpe said.
After the yard work, crews would install an underground barrier wall and cap contaminated soil on the property, he said. Areas without a cap could support trees and other flexible uses. Areas with a cap would face limits on planting and construction to avoid damaging the protective layer.
Even with that progress, the project is not fully funded. Staff told the board that Phase 1 is “predominantly funded,” but still short by $8.6 million. Phase 2 has no funding at all.
“We are very confident we'll get the $8 million to fund part one,” Thorpe said. “Part two is a little more iffy.”
Thorpe said the site could still open as a park after Phase 1, even if Phase 2 is delayed. He cautioned that if thermal work happens later, crews would likely have to fence off part of the property for about a year.
Those funding uncertainties are also shaping how the city is approaching the property itself.
In 2022, the CRA set aside $100,000 to explore a possible purchase. Victoria D’Angelo, the CRA’s administrative officer, said about 60% has been spent on appraisals, title work, and other due diligence.
Councilwoman Jennifer Brahier said she believed the money was meant to move the city toward acquisition.
“I think that when we approved the $100,000, we were approving it for actual acquisition,” she said. “To hear that 60% of it is gone with nothing in the works for acquisition is just concerning.”
City officials said the city could buy the property before the cleanup is finished and that doing so would not change the EPA’s responsibility for the work. For now, however, they are choosing to wait while the federal funding picture and timeline remain unsettled.
“So EPA 100% controls the remediation,” D’Angelo said, adding that the timeline and financing decisions also rest with the federal agency. Because public amenities cannot be built until cleanup is complete, she said, the city is “kind of in a holding pattern.”
Mayor D.C. Reeves said City Hall is pressing for action even though it does not control the federal process.
“A lot of this we don't control ... at the local level,” he said, “but we aren't sitting on our hands.”
Reeves also criticized how long the property has remained on the Superfund list.
“This has been an EPA Superfund site for many, many years,” he said. “And yet it does not appear that there’s any real obligation on the EPA’s part to actually clean up these sites.”
Reeves said he and staff have met with EPA officials in Washington and have been in touch with the area’s legislative delegation about the funding gap.
“We've had two meetings with EPA in Washington DC in the last 90 days,” he said. “... Nothing's going to happen if we don't get this $8.6 million Delta taken care of.”
