CITY HALL
Reeves: Federal Housing Bill, Birdon Deal Moving Toward August Vote
Mayor touts bipartisan housing legislation, says Birdon lease should reach Triumph board and city council by late summer, with no city tax dollars in the deal if grants come through
Mayor D.C. Reeves used his Wednesday press conference to walk through two of the city’s biggest moving pieces: the federal housing bill that cleared Congress this week, and the Birdon America shipbuilding project, which he said is on track for a Triumph Gulf Coast board vote and a city council vote by late summer.
- Why this matters: Reeves said the federal housing package, passed by Congress with bipartisan support and awaiting the president’s signature, could directly help Pensacola build more affordable housing, in part by loosening restrictions on how the city can use Community Development Block Grant dollars.
“This is the best type of economic development you can have, which is $160 million every year coming in from somewhere else and being injected into this community.”
Housing Bill: New Flexibility, Corporate Buyer Limits
Reeves said his housing team is still combing through the legislation, but outlined three changes he expects to help locally:
- CDBG flexibility: For the first time, federal Community Development Block Grant dollars could be used to directly build affordable housing units, not just fund supporting infrastructure like site prep. Previously, the city could prepare a site with federal dollars but had to find separate funding to actually construct the home, adding cost and delay.
- Corporate buyer restrictions: The bill sets legal limits, for the first time, preventing large institutional investors, defined as those owning 350 or more single-family homes, from stockpiling additional single-family homes. It does not force divestment of existing properties and still allows corporate entities to build new single-family homes specifically for rent.
- Regulatory streamlining: The bill accelerates environmental reviews for infill, small-scale and low-impact housing rehab projects funded with federal dollars, cutting back on what Reeves described as red tape that can hold up even a single-property project for an extended period.
Reeves said his administration would share specific numbers and impacts in the coming weeks as staff finishes analyzing the bill. PNJ reporter Jim Little noted a late-breaking wrinkle: President Trump was expected to hold a signing ceremony Wednesday but is now withholding his signature until Congress also passes a related measure. The mayor declined to weigh in on the Washington dynamics but said he hopes the bipartisan bill moves forward.
Birdon: Term Sheet Approved, Lease Targeted for August
The Triumph Gulf Coast board approved a term sheet for the grant agreement with Birdon America on Monday, the second of three major steps toward finalizing the shipbuilding project at the Port of Pensacola. Reeves said the next milestone, approval of the full grant agreement, is targeted for Triumph’s August meeting, to be followed by lease terms between the city and Birdon. Both the grant agreement and the lease will require city council approval.
- Reeves said the city does not plan to bring the lease to council before it clears Triumph. “I think any delay, so to speak, would be more of the moving parts of it than it is that we have significant differences in opinion about overall terms,” he said, adding that the remaining issues, including what percentage of the roughly 2,000 jobs will be based on port versus off-site, are minor at this point.
If all anticipated federal and state grants come through, Reeves said, there will be no city tax dollars in the project. Birdon’s own investment is projected at roughly $152 million to $153 million.
- 2,000 total jobs projected, averaging $80,000 a year, for roughly $160 million in annual payroll
- About 1,437 jobs, averaging $68,000, tied directly to manufacturing and welding on the Port of Pensacola
- About 500-plus jobs, averaging $112,000, in engineering, accounting and other office functions, likely located off-port in the broader Pensacola area
- $104 million, 400,000-square-foot facility planned at the port
- $11 million in road and rail repairs, funded through Hurricane Sally recovery money, already underway to support port infrastructure
Birdon is currently completing a noise study on its intended facility design, which Reeves requested to give assurance to the council and the public that manufacturing activity won’t burden nearby neighborhoods.
Reeves said the city is in constant conversation with Birdon about traffic flow and parking as the workforce ramps up. His preferred long-term solution remains a parking garage on the city- and port-owned surface lots west of the port, south of the Holiday Inn, with a possible elevated walkway over the train tracks connecting to the port’s north terminus.
He said the existing surface lot at the port can’t accommodate the eventual workforce, and using port-side acreage for surface parking long-term would waste limited, foreign-trade-zone-protected real estate better used for industrial activity.
Workforce Summit Planned for Fall
Reeves said the city will convene a workforce summit this fall, bringing together Pensacola State College, the University of West Florida, CareerSource Florida, the U.S. Department of Labor, Florida Commerce Secretary (an invitation is planned for Secretary Kelly), the Escambia County School District, ST Engineering and Birdon.
“What we don’t want to do is celebrate 2,000 jobs and not have Pensacola… I think we’ve got a lot of people that are clamoring for $80,000-a-year jobs. The demand for the job, the career, isn’t what I worry about. To me, it’s just a big number.”
Reeves said he’s raised with state officials, including Secretary Kelly, the idea of a program letting students at state colleges across Florida split time between their home campus and Pensacola to help fill the eventual workforce gap. He noted Birdon’s hiring will ramp up gradually, with full staffing not expected until roughly 2028 or 2029, giving the region a runway to build training pipelines rather than scrambling at the last minute.
Inland Port: Early but Real
Reeves said discussions around an inland port site, separate land with rail access that could support suppliers and component manufacturers feeding the Birdon project, are still well behind the Birdon negotiations but are active. He said he has personally discussed the concept twice in Washington with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the military, and that PEDC and Escambia County are aware of and involved in the conversations.
Asked whether the site would need to be along the Escambia River, Reeves said no. An inland port, he said, would more likely be located away from the water, with rail spur access and proximity to the interstate, functioning as a tariff- and trade-zone-advantaged lay-down area for materials rather than a waterfront facility.
Bay Center / Tech Park
On the joint city-county discussions over a second Pensacola Bay Center facility and the surrounding tech park property, Reeves said the city has pledged to bring in the WT Design firm to look more closely at two things: the scale and finish level of a potential second event facility, and a deeper look at available government funding streams and loans to help finance the project.
- He confirmed the city has had productive, non-binding conversations with the owners of the Grand Hotel about their willingness to be part of the broader development discussion, but said anything more formal would be premature. He said he needs more clarity from the county on questions around facility management, including whether any extension of the current management contract would be short-term or a major long-term commitment, before weighing in further.
On PEDC’s parallel work exploring a spec building and parking garage on Tech Park property, Reeves said his personal view is that the highest and best use of that land is parking infrastructure that could support Tech Park development if it moves forward, or stand on its own if it doesn’t. His only ask of PEDC: build it right-sized for future growth rather than just current need.