Mayor’s Presser: City conveys interest in John A. Gibson school building
By Tom St. Myer
At his weekly press conference, Mayor D.C. Reeves announced the city contacted Escambia County Public Schools about its interest in taking ownership of the vacant John A. Gibson school building.
Located at the 700 block of North C Street, the building originally opened in 1921 as a segregated elementary school and functioned in that capacity until closing in 1974. Head Start then operated its headquarters out of the building for 50 years until the school district terminated the lease, effective December 31, 2023.
“Our intent is to get something to the CRA board to authorize us to negotiate and from there the process would start with School Board approval,” Reeves said.
Reeves said his goal is to conserve the building, but he has no interest in the city owning and maintaining the property in perpetuity.
“I could see a scenario where a tenant of the building is responsible for the repairs and that we lease it to them for a low amount or no amount based on what the expense was and then we all win, right? We conserve the building, it goes into active use, the city isn’t paying for those repairs and we’re not responsible for the maintenance.”
Damages to the building from Hurricane Sally forced Head Start to reduce the number of families being served from about 200 to under 40 in the past few years. Head Start attempted to find resources to repair the building but failed in its efforts.
“If this were to continue to proceed it would require structural assessments and things like that, because we know that there was a lot of damage from Hurricane Sally and we don’t know to what extent,” Reeves said, “but we wanted to make sure a building with this kind of history in our community had a fair shot to be preserved if it could be.”
Earlier this month, Inweekly questioned the school district on its plans for the building. Cody Strother, coordinator of communications, said, “we may or may not be entertaining offers for sale or lease. No decisions have been made at this point.”
Proposed funding plan for Baptist Hospital
Reeves revealed his proposed funding plan for the Baptist Hospital legacy campus. He estimated that demolition and abatement costs for the main hospital and towers will be $14 million and another $2.4 million for ancillary buildings included in the donation.
His proposed funding plan includes:
• $1 million from the city (CRA)
• $2 million from the county
• $2.9 million in proceeds for a land sale to PACES for approximately 200 attainable housing units
• $3 million from Baptist
• $5-8 million from the state legislature
Reeves cited a $5 million city-secured HUD/CDBG Commercial Revitalization Grant as another possible funding source. The catch is that the funding can only be used on property that will be 100% commercial. Reeves said some of the money could potentially be used on the outlying building abatement and demolition estimated at $2.4 million.
“This is how we see it today,” Reeves said. “This is an ever-evolving project. Trust me, if there’s a $3 million grant that we find out about tomorrow, this could all change.”