At his weekly press conference, Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves announced he will be meeting with Conservation Florida on Oct. 19 about conserving closed Bay Bluffs Park.
Rumors circulated in recent weeks on social media that the city planned to sell the park.
“It’s why you don’t get your news from Facebook,” Reeves said. “There was some thought that we would want to privatize that. I will resign the day that we sell Bay Bluffs Park. We want to protect it. We think that that kind of conservation will help us get grant funding and we can start to look at what our future options are. Do we blaze trails through there? There’s been Boy Scout, Eagle Scout projects throughout the state of Florida that have been partnerships that could enhance that property.”
The City closed a section of the park in March for repairs. Last month, Reeves announced the park will be closed indefinitely due to structural concerns. Reeves said the walkway will need to be demolished and the estimated cost to replace tops $1 million.
Asked if Conservation Florida would take ownership of the park, Reeves said ownership would remain with the City.
“All we’re saying in an agreement with Conservation Florida is that neither Mayor Reeves nor any mayor after would be able to break that agreement and just turn around and sell it,” Reeves said. “There’s a lot of fallacies with that notion. For us to sell any city property, it has to go to (City) Council. There’s no unilateral way for me or the next mayor to ever just make that kind of decision without some Council action.”
Reeves mentioned the possibility of requesting state funding for the park in the upcoming session, but he said that will be lower on the priority list. The top tier consists of asking for $23 million for a Pensacola International Airport terminal and $18-20 million for demolition of Baptist Hospital.
“Those are certainly big asks of our delegation,” Reeves said.. “But we also have some other asks like potentially the seawall at Wayside Park to finish off that project. We’re trying to find that funding, and I wouldn’t rule out Bay Bluffs on that, but as some of those secondary projects behind the big ones.”
The terminal is a $70 million project. Reeves said the City will ask the federal and state each for $23 million and then bond the remaining amount.