Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves has received some criticism about renting out Port Warehouse #4 for an indoor sports facility (Comment on Belmont Hall post). He responded on “Real News with Rick Outzen” this morning.
“First thing I always frame it this way, I was born in 1984, and the last lease on the building in question is 1979,” said the mayor. “Any citizen has had 45 years to let us know who are these (potential) long-term tenants.”
He continued “The delta we’re talking about here is the revenue of what’s proposed here and what we consider market rate on an aging building of which we will be due to have improvements ourselves…We cannot just look at what is the rent rate and assume that that’s the maximum return on investment for the city of Pensacola.”
Mayor Reeves said the economic impact on downtown Pensacola is much greater than the annual rent. He also pointed out the proposed agreement doesn’t give the tenant control of 200 parking spaces but says the parking will be available.
