Brownsville Middle School has sat vacant for three years. One wing has been damaged by fire. The School District has let one its contractors use the former administrative offices. The school is in a depressed neighborhood four blocks west of W Street. There is a huge junkyard across the street.
Friendship Missionary Baptist Church wants to buy and convert into a church and full community center. It’s an ambitious plan for a part of Pensacola that needs such a project. Rev. LuTimothy May would like to have library branch, health clinic, after-school activities, computer lab and maybe even a sheriff substation there.
The School Board wants to help make it happen. Superintendent Thomas is the stumbling block. He says he has an appraisal for the property for $1.7 million—which may be pre-fire. The school system did collect on the insurance for the fire damage, but chose not to spend it on the school.
May and his church had offered $500,000 which would have given them $500,000 from their savings and loan commitments to renovate the facility. Thomas refused it. May has come back with $1.02 million – which I think hurts, or at least delays, their ability to fully develop the property. Still Thomas refused and would not even put it on the agenda for the board to discuss.
Now the school board has asked Thomas to please sit down with Rev. May and work this out. The church has a loan commitment that expires at the first of the year.
We have a blighted area that needs this type of center. We have the African-American community willing to put its own money and invest in Brownsville. We’ve seen the School District give property in much better neighborhoods to non-profits.
This property doesn’t need to be an expansion of the junkyard that is across the street – which is what I’ve heard is one option being considered by Thomas. And it doesn’t help to eat up all the capital of a church and its congregation.
Thomas needs to be more interested in the community and less concerned about the sales price. This is just dilapidated building to Thomas–an entry on ledger book. To Brownsville, this is a just to rebuild hope.
We and others will be watching how Thomas deals with this. He didn’t get elected by the African-American vote and may not be concerned about how he hurts his relationships in that part of the community. However, Brownsville impacts all of us–it’s crime, poverty, prostitution, gangs and drugs drag this county down. This project is the one way to stem the tide and begin to rebuild pride.
Thomas needs to lower his asking price to less than $500,000 and be more consistent with how other non-profits have been treated. It’s time to put your flowcharts, statistical reports and ledgers down and see how you can make a real difference in a part of the community that the school system has abandoned.
And where is Commissioner Marie Young on this issue?
Popularity: 8% [?]
He doesn’t go downtown, not his type of “people” down there.
Amazing!! I wish it wasn’t more of the same ****!! Does he oppose the Maritime Park too!!!!
Dilligaff:
That was sold to a private individual many years ago.
Anybody wants to see the outcome of this if the school continues to own the property, go to the corner of “C” street and Chase Street to see what a complete desaster it is.
$Again has said it best. I’d love to see an inventory of vacant school buildings. These are some of the biggest blighting influences in our community and nothing can be done it seems to make the school board improve or relinquish them.
I know one way to get Thomas to make the deal. Have LuTimothy promise to name the building after Thomas. As big as his ego is, Malcolm will jump all over it.
What plan does Mr. Thomas have for the building?
A vagrant flop house?
The award for the biggest eyesore in the area?
Ignore it until it must be demolished?
The school board should not own property it is not using.
One building mentioned above and the former USO building on Spring Street are two more examples of the way this board manages property. Nice eyesore collection.
How irresponsible to allow buildings paid for with tax dollars to rot and blight our city while our school board watches.
I agaree with each of these comments. GIVE the property to the church for a perpetual $1 annual lease. The good this endeavor can do for this community far outweighs any monetary gain. Isn’t GREED evident enough in the crisis the world is currently in? Why add to it when there are people willing to take from their own pockets to try to help improve an area that is very much in need of whatever help they can get. There ARE some things more important than money you know. Do the right thing and let the church do what it says it will do. If they fail, then repossess the property at no loss to you.
You can reach the superintendent at 439-6130 or mthomas@escambia.k12.fl.us
What a shame. I drive by a brand new library on Langley every day. It’s beautiful. Most of the people in that neighborhood can afford internet access, or a book from Barnes & Nobles, or have a place for their kids to play (actually, at the park across the street).
So here you have a church that wants to be a community anchor – a sheriff substation, a library, a community center, a place for after-school programs…and they’re even offering to pay for it.
But our elected school superintendent won’t do it. And people wonder why nothing ever happens around here…..
Mr. Thomas: Since we have similar names I sometimes get your messages by mistake, this one just came in for you: Your sheets are ready, extra starch, and we repaired the hood. Jimbo has your EZ Light Cross ready as well.
This building does not need to be sold to the congregation. They should not be forced to use their captial to purchase a building already paid for by some of their tax dollars. This building should be provided to them with a long term lease at $1 per year. The funds this group has could be used to restore the building. If the program is successfully we all win. In the worst case scenario the program fails the school district gets back a restored building. This is where the lack of political leadership in this community is most evident. This is a no brainer.
Of course Thomas turned down the deal, even if the offer had been for over the pre-fire appraised value he would have still turned it down. No soccer moms here to worry about, no upper middle class daddies with business connections, no white people, so why should he care? It’s getting to be so hard to be a blatant racist these days, huh Malcolm? Do the right thing and let the church have the property, any other district would have GIVEN it to them. At least you can sell it to them at a fair price.
Too many times the school board has let their former school properties become abandoned eye sores that blight the communities surrounding these sites. It is atrocious. They keep them insured, reap the monies once vagrants get in and do damage, but don’t repair and further blight the property values that surround them. What other use do they see for this site?? The only use is for either a community center OR conversion into a retirement home. The school board needs to make this redevelopment or sale of this site a priority and NOT continue to blight this area with their abandoned and neglected property. We don’t need another eye sore like what they did on Gregory Street downtown between C & D Street. Go by and look at that School Board travesity. An entire block blighting a neighborhood with two former school buildings that look like they have been bombed.