by Jeremy Morrison, Inweekly
The Port of Pensacola may be in a state of evolution — broadening its portfolio, adding less industrial tenants — but in the meantime, the facility is seeing record breaking activity.
“We had record breaking cargo activity in 2022,” Mayor D.C. Reeves said during his weekly press conference on Jan. 31. “It’s the most that we’ve had in 15 years.”
The past year, Pensacola’s port facilitated the movement of 425,277 tons of cargo. That’s a 55 percent increase from the prior fiscal year.
“Obviously great news and great work happening out there at the port,” Reeves said.
NAS, YES
A focal point of Mayor Reeves just-released transition report was the city’s relations with Naval Air Station Pensacola. In an effort to begin strengthening this relationship, the mayor recently visited the local military base.
“I asked to go out there and really just get a lay of the land,” Reeves said.
The mayor wanted to know how the city and NAS could build upon their current relationship and how the city could better support NAS?
“Really, just what is going well, how can we support sailors that are there?” Reeves said. “How we can help maintain mission, grow mission? Because, we can say the military isn’t our job, or we can realize that it’s 40 percent of our economy and what would we do without it?”
The mayor stressed that working to ensure the city supported NAS would be near the top of his priority list.
“Certainly, we as a city are not going to sit idly by,” he said. “if there’s needs, concerns that they have, that we could be helpful in. I’ve made that abundantly clear, that we will play an active role in anything that we can do to help support the mission at NAS.”
Market Growth?
The Palafox Market in downtown Pensacola currently fills the blocks of Palafox Street near MLK Plaza. Mayor Reeves has said that the city is looking to expand the market further south on Palafox to Plaza Ferdinand, which will require the city to open the long-off-limits park.
“We will be bringing forward an ordinance change to open up Plaza Ferdinand,” Reeves said, adding that a potential revision will go before the Pensacola City Council in early February.
Plaza Ferdinand is currently closed to events such as the market. Opening the plaza will require an ordinance revision approved by the city council. The move will also require a new interlocal agreement with the Downtown Improvement Board, which manages the market.
Mayor Reeves said that the fact that no more vendors can currently be accommodated near MLK Plaza is evidence that the market needs additional space.
“When you have a backlog of 50-plus small businesses, be it from crafts to retail to whatever — and we have a backlog that can’t get into Palafox Market — that’s what we call pent-up demand, and we want to make sure that we foster a small business community,” Reeves said.
Also, the mayor added that opening up Plaza Ferdinand should energize another downtown area on Saturdays.
“We talk about place-making and building a sense of place,” Reeves said. “And we have a park that has remained relatively inactive for almost as long as I’ve been alive. So, I think this is something that we should try.”
In assessing the potential for opening up Plaza Ferdinand to events, the mayor stressed that the city had prioritized ensuring that the move would not jeopardize the park in any way.
“We put a lot of thought into this, and we’ve walked the grounds and we know the history there, and we’re respectful of that,” Reeves said. “We certainly know how important the tree canopy is there, and maintaining that, it is a beautiful space within the heart of our downtown.”
While Plaza Ferdinand has been a quietened space for some time, it wasn’t always closed to events. In fact, Mayor Reeves noted, Pensacola City Councilwoman Teniade Broughton recently brought it to his attention that prior to 1821, when Pensacola was under Spanish rule, the plaza grounds hosted the Spanish market.
“Before this was even the state of Florida,” the mayor said, “that’s what that space was used for.”
Text-to-Park
Parking in downtown Pensacola is about to get … easier? That’s what Pensacola officials are hoping anyway, as they launch a new method of paid parking in the downtown area.
“Let’s just make it as easy as possible on everybody,” Mayor Reeves said.
For years, people have complained about downtown parking, whether it be how parking spaces are positioned or the amount charged to park in them. Mayor Reeves said that perhaps people are simply frustrated with the process, and that the ability to pay-by-text will alleviate some of that frustration.
“What we realized,” the mayor said, “it may not be the 50 cents per hour that deters you from coming downtown, it’s the experience.”
Beginning March 1, the city will launch PARKPensacola, a pay-by-text option that allows drivers the ability to pay to park without having to download an app or sign up for an account. The PARKPensacola spaces will be identified by teal signage, identifying a particular parking zone.