Ed Gray, head of the Capital Trust Agency-CDE, made it clear today that if the multi-use stadium is pulled out of the Community Maritime Park project. The $12 million in New Market Tax Credits will also be withdrawn. The tax credit funds were given to the City of Pensacola for a specific list of capital projects and hard assets that could be constructed within 18 months.
“The investors (CDEs) have the option to redeploy the tax credits and they will do so rather than face a recapture penalty,” Gray said. “It took us nine months to give Pensacola $12 million. We can’t wait for them to reconfigure the park.”
One of the investors is U.S. Bank. Gray told me how excited their people were about this project initially.
“Two of their people came to Pensacola. They walked the property and went over to City Hall and viewed it from the seventh floor. They got really excited and were impressed that this would be a true downtown redevelopment.” U.S. Bank was so enthusiastic about the Community Maritime Park that they have added $10 million of their NTMCs to the project.
Gray believes these repeated petition drives by Donovan are hurting the image of the City of Pensacola in the investment community.
“These shenanigans scare capital away from Pensacola,” Gray said.