During the “Mornings with the Mayor†session on Wednesday, I asked Mayor Ashton Hayward about his proposal to lease Bruce Beach for a dollar a year for a fish hatchery.
He and his city administrator, Colleen Castille, has spent a significant amount of time at the session with the media defending the fish hatchery from an environmental position.
The hatchery will be built in the Community Redevelopment Agency district on five acres on Pensacola Bay, next to the Maritime Park. It will be built be with $19 million of BP fine monies and will pay no property taxes.
In the course of their presentation, Castille mentioned that the Pensacola City Council had unanimously approved the hatchery. I pointed out that vote was in 2011 before the CRA was scrambling to pay its bills and before the mayor was trying to maximize dollars to city for its property on the waterfront. Was a dollar-a-year still a wise decision?
Hayward danced around the question, but Castille started talking about how the city was paying $300,000 per year for the Maritime Park. She insinuated that the Bruce Beach lease was a better deal than the park.
The city gets ground lease fees for anything build at the park, collects property taxes on the private buildings on the property and has a use agreement with the Blue Wahoos that paid the city about three quarters of a million dollars last year.
The Studers put nearly $3 million into the stadium and are building a $17 million office building. That building will have about 300 employees. I think that more than matches the fish hatchery $19 million investment and its hand full of jobs.
Plus, the park has parcels available to lease and generate more tax revenue and lease fees for the city. Also the city is in charge of operating the maritime park and generating revenue to pay for the park’s operations, which it has done a poor job since the park opened in 2012.
