American Magic opened the American Magic High Performance Center (AMHPC) at the Port of Pensacola yesterday.
- Details: The center serves as the team’s operational base and hub for American Magic Services (AMS), where the team’s composite manufacturing and engineering expertise drives advanced manufacturing, marine technologies, and aerospace projects.
Big News: The High Performance Center will also operate as the official North American training base for SailGP teams, following a partnership announcement between American Magic and the global sail racing championship. Beginning in September 2026, the Pensacola facility will provide SailGP teams with access to world-class on-water and shore-based training infrastructure, supporting year-round preparation, technical development, and athlete performance.
Fortuitous Journey
In March 2024, I wrote about how American Magic chose Pensacola as its headquarters.
The story began not with a grand plan, but with a phone call.
American Magic, the United States challenger for the America’s Cup, was training in Key West in 2018 when word filtered back through sailing circles that the team was looking for a new location. That message reached Dr. James Andrews, who called then-Mayor Ashton Hayward.
Andrews-Hayward Connection
Hayward explained the conversation to Inweekly. “Dr. Andrews, I have the pleasure of working with him now, but I’ve known him for 20-plus years,” he said. “People know about Dr. Andrews being a famous orthopedic surgeon, but Jim sailed in the America’s Cup in 2000. He would do surgeries in Birmingham and then fly to Maui, where they were building the Abracadabra.”
Andrews, who created the Andrews Institute in Gulf Breeze partly because of his love for sailing and area waters, called Hayward in 2018 with news that American Magic was training in the Florida Keys and might be looking to move elsewhere.
“And I said, ‘Well, they need to get up here to Pensacola, Florida. We have an incredible bay,'” Hayward recalled. “And so, we got into that conversation, and the rest is history.”
Merrill, Pace, TDC & Grover
Enter Collier Merrill, the local businessman who championed the cause and helped American Magic navigate Pensacola, Escambia County and Florida politics.
Merrill admitted he knew nothing about sailing. But his office on the top floor of Seville Tower overlooks Pensacola Bay, and in 2018, childhood friend Tom Pace invited him to a meeting about raising money for American Magic to train in Pensacola.
- “I’m one of the few people years ago that said, ‘I like having a port,'” Merrill shared. “We don’t need a bunch of smokestack industry and concrete crushing plants, but it’s nice having the ships coming in and out. That’s how we started with its natural deepwater port.”
Before committing, Merrill consulted with economist Rick Harper and me. Harper, who works for Triumph Gulf Coast, said operational money didn’t fit Triumph’s criteria, but it made sense for the city to help if they were trying to advertise Pensacola Bay around the world. I felt it could help revive the Port.
- At that first meeting, Merrill made his position clear: “I don’t know a single thing about sailing, and I’m probably more confused about it than ever, but this financial component of it to get Pensacola representation on the sail at the pinnacle of the sailing event around the world, that’s not a hard lift. You handle the sailing. I’ll try to figure out the money, and we’ll go from there.”
Merrill and Pace took the idea to the Tourist Development Council, which approved $500,000 annually for three years. “Every one of them just liked the idea,” Merrill said.
Their next stop was Mayor Grover Robinson, who said he didn’t have money for operations but offered land at the port.
- “Skipper Terry Hutchinson and I were leaving the mayor’s office, and I looked at him in the elevator. I said, ‘I think we could get Triumph money for a capital outlay at the port if you want to look at it,'” Merrill recalled. “We began talking about putting their headquarters there.”
At the lease signing ceremony in February 2024, Merrill told the crowd: “We had no playbook. We knew that there’s going to be a boat here, and we’ll do some other stuff.”
American Magic began using the Port of Pensacola on a temporary, seasonal basis in 2018. By 2022, newly-elected Mayor D.C. Reeves picked up the project and moved it quickly toward completion, signing a lease agreement in 2024 and opening the facility yesterday.
Funding for the Facility
- $8.5 million grant from Triumph Gulf Coast
- $5.6 million grant from the Governor’s Job Growth Grant Fund
- $2.3 million grant from the Florida Seaport Transportation and Economic Development Program
- $4.4 million in funding came from prepaid lease payments by American Magic and the University of West Florida