The selection of Bayou District Group as the development advisory consultant for the redevelopment of the old Baptist Hospital site fell apart when the item was pulled from the Pensacola City Council agenda earlier this month.
At today’s press conference, Mayor D.C. Reeves stated that his focus on the project is the demolition of the hospital building. “At the moment, we’ve got a monstrosity of a project ahead of us for the next 18 months, which is to demolish the building.”
- He added, “And one thing I feel real positive about in community feedback is that no one wants to keep the building. So if we all can agree on that, on 100% consensus on something, let’s not leave an abandoned hospital, then we’ll go ahead first into that. I think fencing’s up now around the building, and we’ve got plenty to do there.”
Demolition Miracle?
Baptist abandoned the campus in the West Moreno District in September 2023. Mayor Reeves bragged that no city had put together a similar demolition project as quickly as he and his team.
“I think what gets lost in this, which is a $13 million demolition taking place only a couple years after someone left it. I don’t have the data, but if someone’s taken down an abandoned hospital quicker, funded the way that it was funded, I haven’t heard of it yet,” the mayor said.
He continued, “So that was a miracle in and of itself, thanks to our staff, our grants office, Senator Broxson, and so many folks that helped make that happen.”
Meanwhile, the mayor waits to hear from the council about hiring a development consultant. “We’ll re-engage when I get a better understanding of what council—not just Councilman Wiggins, because you brought him up—but any council member, any feedback that they have or any direction that they want to get.”
Dealing With Misinformation
When asked about possible misinformation about the Bayou District and its track record put forth at the council meeting, Mayor Reeves said, “There were lots of allegations flying around unfounded in that meeting, and certainly that I don’t see or never have seen it as the avenue to engage in things that aren’t really backed with facts.”
He said it isn’t his job to deal with the allegations point by point. “Certainly, they could do a better job, or Travis (Peterson) or whoever could do a better job of explaining their position. All I’ve merely tried to do is go through a process of starting community engagement, and I would make an argument that generally we feel like the community engagement was pretty well accepted at Hollice T. Williams.”
He argued that Bayou District Consulting was not recommended to be the developer. “They’re not hired to even design anything. All they are merely being hired to do is to start the community engagement…They’re hired to engage the community on what the community wants. And so I think that was understandably misperceived.”
Fact check: Bayou District Consulting proposed creating a website and social media platforms, and holding 20+ “stakeholder” meetings and two town hall meetings over 180 days. However, the consultants would do more than community engagement. They would review land-use codes, infrastructure, and demolition materials and provide guidance on governance, partnerships, and implementation. The team included law, architectural, engineering and landscaping firms.
He added, “To your original question, there were many things that were intentionally misperceived in that council meeting about us, about me, about them, but again, we’re not here to have a pity party. We’ll continue to do what we think is the right thing to do and attempt to do what we think is the right thing to do because that’s always guided us well is we only want what’s right for everybody in the community and so we’ll take a step back and kind of reassess how we want to handle that moving forward and focus on the demolition.”
Followed Set Timeline
Mayor Reeves argued he stood by the timeline for engagement that he asserted that he had set for more than a year. “We wanted to start the community feeling heard and engaged as quickly as we could around the demolition, so they weren’t seeing progress in terms of a building going down without feeling like people were included. So that was the timeline we had for well over a year, and that’s the timeline we’ve stuck to.”
Fact check: At his April 1 press conference, Mayor Reeves said, “We will not send a wrecking ball through anything until we have started a conversation about what the community wants.”
The mayor also pointed out that Bayou District Consulting was the only responsive bid. “The two choices are to hire them or scrap it altogether. Both are viable options, but there isn’t going to be a number two or a number three on the list because there isn’t a number two or number three. So I know that that gives headwinds to the misperception that we’ve hand-selected them, but nobody else was in.”
Waiting on Council
He added, “And if the council wants to bring something back forward, I think that question probably is more suited for them to say if it’s too tarnished or if it’s something that they feel like they want to bring back.”
Mayor Reeves admitted that “anytime that something is pulled or approved it ends up as a surprise, and certainly things said from the days Monday and Thursday were the first time we heard it from the dais.”
“Not everyone is going to agree with everything I do, nor should I expect that, but I don’t want it to be on a lack of information or a lack of communication. So if everybody understands the issue and then they vote no, that’s part of it. That’s part of my job,” he said. “Not having all the information is where we’ve got to look at ourselves. I got to look at me personally and make sure that I’m doing a good enough job communicating, and certainly I hope that they look at it that way too, to make sure that they have all the information when they make their decision.”
- The mayor said, “So we’ll see what happens. And again, we’ve got enough to do. We’re not crying our cornflakes over this. We’re going to get going and go get demolition done.”
Sounds like someone is upset with the public and Mr Wiggins because the cornflakes hasn’t been stirred the way you want it too.