Downtown Pensacola
Pensacola is hosting the Florida Downtowns conference for the first time this week, and the man who signed the city up for it six years ago is now showing his peers around.
Walker Wilson, executive director of the Pensacola Downtown Improvement Board (DIB), joined me on Rick’s Blog Live to talk about what brought roughly ten to fifteen downtown directors from across the state to Pensacola—many of them for the first time.
- “It’s kind of crazy, full circle,” Wilson said of the timing. His start date with the DIB fell exactly six years before the conference began.
Who’s Coming, and Why Here
The visiting group includes downtown organizations from Miami, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Delray Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Jacksonville—cities with budgets that dwarf Pensacola’s. Miami’s downtown development district runs on $22 million a year. Pensacola’s DIB operates on a little over $1.1 to $1.2 million.
Despite the size gap, Wilson said the value is in comparing notes.
“It’s a chance to pick each other’s brains and see what kind of processes we might try and mirror here in Pensacola.”
- The group also keeps an eye on Tallahassee together, since most Florida DIBs—including Pensacola’s, created in 1973—operate as special taxing districts and are exposed to the same state legislation.
How the DIB Actually Works
Wilson used the visit to explain a distinction that often gets lost locally: the DIB is not Visit Pensacola, and it’s not the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA).
- Visit Pensacola is funded largely through the bed tax collected from overnight visitors.
- The CRA is funded by tax-increment financing pulled from multiple taxing entities — the county, the city, and the DIB — without creating any new tax.
- The DIB is its own separate taxing authority, outside both city and county government, funded by an extra two mills levied on roughly 500 parcels inside the downtown district, plus Palafox Market revenue.
Where the money goes: safety is the top priority every year. The DIB’s single biggest budget line is its downtown cleaning ambassador program, which has grown from one and a half employees six years ago to five full-time staff today and was shifted from an outside contractor to a local company.
The Showcase Tour
Rather than sitting in a conference room, the visiting directors are getting a working tour of downtown’s recent growth:
- Dinner at Harry Roy, with drop-ins expected from City Council President Allison Patton and Hotel Margot/Harry Roy owner Raf Simpson
- Coffee with a Cop at The Dog House with Pensacola Police Chief Eric Winstrom
- A meet-and-greet with Mayor D.C. Reeves at City Hall on the role of downtown investment in the city’s economy
- A tour of the Port of Pensacola, including a stop with American Magic
- An optional Saturday walk through the Palafox Market, Pensacola’s weekly farmers market with roughly 200 vendors
The group is also staying at Hotel Margot, downtown’s newest hotel and only the second inside the DIB district after the Holiday Inn on Main Street, with the Hotel Tristan still to come this fall.
Looking ahead: Wilson said the DIB board wants to make Plaza Ferdinand a bigger focus going forward, pointing to St. Petersburg’s downtown park investments as a model.
