Affordable Housing

Where Malcolm Yonge Gym Stood

The city’s first multi-unit community land trust development gets a name that nods to the site’s history: Legacy at Malcolm Yonge.

• Pensacola Habitat for Humanity broke ground Tuesday, Nov. 10, on nine affordable homes at 925 E. Jackson St., the site of the former Malcolm Yonge Gym. The homes will be built under a community land trust model designed to keep them affordable for generations, not just for the first families who move in.

At the end of the ceremony, Habitat President and CEO Sam Young revealed the neighborhood’s name: Legacy at Malcolm Yonge.

• “It will be a different form, but it will still be a place for Pensacola to come together, for children to be able to grow, for families to be able to thrive,” Young said.

Construction will start once permits are issued.

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Why the Land Trust Matters

Young told the crowd the land trust was “not an easy decision” for Habitat’s board, which signed on to the idea four years ago. “It was a departure from our normal course of business,” he said.

How it works: The land trust does two things at once. It lowers the cost of buying the home, and it locks in the public and Habitat subsidy so it passes from one owner to the next.

• Nine families will live on the site.
• The city contributed the land and other resources to get the project moving.
• When one family moves on, the next gets the same subsidy.
• Mayor D.C. Reeves said the homes will remain affordable for 100 years.

“Unlike some of the other affordable housing projects where it was only affordable to that first family, this project is going to secure that subsidy, that affordability for generations.” —Sam Young, Pensacola Habitat for Humanity

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Reeves: Mayors “Roll Up Their Sleeves”

Reeves, who joked that he played “a little bit of basketball, maybe not well” in the old gym, called the project the first-ever multi-unit community land trust development built in the city.

• “Where we stand was once a home to a dilapidated gym left unkept and neglected,” the mayor said. “Today on this very same dirt comes renewal and comes opportunity.”

He also took a swipe at the national political climate. “In all the noise and endless debate of national politics, probably fresh on our minds right now, it is mayors and local leaders like you who actually roll up their sleeves and get things done,” Reeves said. “We don’t have the luxury of talking about problems from 30,000 feet.”

Reeves called the site half a block off Ninth Avenue: “The cornerstone of the next evolution” of the city’s partnership with Habitat.

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A Gym With 60 Years of History

City Council President Allison Patton, who represents the neighborhood, walked through the site’s past. The gym opened in 1961 and was named for Malcolm Yonge, one of the first members of the Pensacola Parks and Recreation Board. Yonge served from 1943 to 1951 and is widely credited with starting the city’s parks beautification program.

Patton said when she campaigned four years ago, neighbors told her their children and grandchildren could no longer use the gym. Previous city leadership had leased it to a private educational institution.

• The decision to let it go: Shortly after Patton and Reeves took office, structural assessments documented extensive deterioration and found the building was no longer safe. The city and council changed course.

“I want to say this plainly, that letting that building go and making that decision was not easy,” Patton said. “Many people, some of you may be here, have fought to save that building because you cared about it.”

“The site always served families and that purpose isn’t changing. Only the form is. Where children once came to learn lessons after school, they will now come to go home.” —Council President Allison Patton

• Patton said the homes are meant for “the people of the city that work here, but increasingly cannot afford to actually live here.”

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Memories on the Court

Habitat board member JT Young, a Pensacola native, remembered playing ball in the gym when it had no air conditioning and later coaching his son’s city league team there. The last game he coached, he said, they lost.

• “I can’t think of a better use of this space in the city that I call home than to ensure that folks in our community have a decent place to live,” he said.

He also cleared up any confusion about the name. Yonge, he noted, is “spelled different than my name. … It’s a different family.”