City Gets to Work on Bruce Beach Revitalization Project
by Jeremy Morrison, Inweekly
Bruce Beach has a rich history. On Tuesday, city of Pensacola officials dug into its notable future with gold-colored shovels, breaking ground on a multi-million dollar municipal improvement project years in the making.
“We are in, what I would consider, a sacred place,” said Teniade Broughton, District 5 Pensacola City Councilwoman and chair of the Community Redevelopment Area, during the groundbreaking ceremony in the field overlooking the city’s only downtown waterfront.
Though Bruce Beach — a sliver of beach near Maritime Park — became overgrown over the years, the area has served varied purposes. The waterfront was once an industrial port and later served as a segregated swimming area. Where Councilwoman Broughton stood, she noted, was the site of the city’s segregated pool.
“I hear stories from a family who will talk about coming to swim her in the early days,” Broughton relayed to those in attendance for the groundbreaking.
The councilwoman continued, explaining that the segregated pool was installed because of the high number of drownings off the beach, where the dropoff of the former port was significant, and the resulting outcry from the city’s Black community.
“It was that community who stood and said, ‘we are already treated less than in the fact that we have these troubled waters — I’m just going to call them troubled waters — and would like a place to play,” Broughton said. “Now, how is it that people had to fight for their right to play? What does it say about our society when people have to protest against playing because their tired of their children drowning? This is what makes this place so sacred.”
As the city begins work on this revitalization project, the councilwoman said people should keep in mind Bruce Beach’s history.
“We know that we want it to be a beautiful space for kayaking and the only city beach we will have to enjoy, but consider, please, the story that we’re standing on and the new story that will come from it,” Broughton said.
Reflecting on Bruce Beach’s past will be more convenient in the future, as the city’s improvement project includes a historical education component. The more than $8.5 million project, designed to reconnect the public to its waterfront, also includes an entry plaza, a scenic overlook, play features, trails and a kayak launch.
During the groundbreaking ceremony, Pensacola City Council President Ann Hill recalled how the Bruce Beach site sat inaccessible just a few years ago. When the waterfront was assessed in 2018, a locked gate led to the beach.
“We found out that the gates were locked, and the weeds were 20 feet high, and it just seemed like such a disappointment,” Hill reflected.
Since that time, the area around Bruce Beach has been cleaned up and made accessibly and the plans for the site’s revitalization plans were arrived at through a series of public workshops; the project was ultimately designed by engineering firm HDR, with involvement from SCAPE, an urban planning firm from New York that is plugged into other, related municipal projects.
Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson said he thought the work at Bruce Beach represented an overall effort to reconnect to a neglected waterfront.
“In a sense, we had lost the waterfront in so many ways, through disuse and disrepair,” Robinson said. “But in many ways, we’ve begun to reclaim it, but in a different way — not in an industrial way, but a way for people, and a way that people can enjoy things and enjoy parks.”
So, after a lengthy lead-up to this project due to COVID-related delays, the city will finally get to work on this Bruce Beach improvement project. The work is expected to take about a year, with the site closed to the public until completion.
And while these improvements to Bruce Beach are exciting — upping the city’s’ “vibrancy” quotient, Mayor Robinson stressed — they will be occurring within the context of environmental concerns at the site. Recently, officials were alerted to an issue with wastewater infiltrating the stormwater system and ultimately making its way to the waters off of Bruce Beach.
Officials with both the city of Pensacola, as well as the Emerald Coast Utility Authority are currently working to determine the infiltration sites and sources and remedy the issue. Council President Hill noted during the Bruce Beach groundbreaking how the effort was paramount to the overall success of the project.
“Unless we can have healthy water, this park will not be complete,” Hill said.