The Community Maritime Park Associates board agreed to a Covenant with the Community which promised the park would be the most inclusive project in the city’s history. That Covenant has been supplanted by the Equal Business Opportunity agreement with the CMPA board and the developer. Is the Covenant being fulfilled as people expected?
PART 1: Commitments made
It was one of the most unique features of the Community Maritime Park when it was presented to the Pensacola City Council-a feature that wasn’t brick and mortar, but rather an contract with the community that the public-private partnership to build a maritime park on Pensacola Bay that would be an ‘catalyst for a better today and tomorrow for the people of Pensacola’ by becoming one of the most inclusive projects in the city’s history. That contract was called the ‘Covenant with the Community.’
The Community Maritime Park Associates, through its initial board members-UWF president John Cavanaugh, Adm. Jack Fetteman and businessman Quint Studer-and later ratified by the new board members after the 2006 referendum passed, committed in writing:
- The Board of Trustees selection will be representative of the City’s demographic diversity.
2. To establish a Contractor Academy to educate and assist local and minority contractors.
3. All contractors will be sought to help ensure they are representative of the demographic diversity of the city with a particular focus of attracting minority-owned companies.
4. Support services from security to maintenance to accounting, legal and advertising will be representative of the demographic diversity of the community.
5. Every effort would be made to ensure activities such as sporting camps, educational camps and recreational camps will provided to city youth with free or scholarship enrollment to those in need of assistance.
(Read agreement: CMPA_Covenant_with_theCommunity)
For a city like Pensacola that at the time had less than 10 percent of its entire purchases for goods and services with minority-owned companies, the agreement was revolutionary.
It helped persuade the African-American community to support the park referendum. Citywide the referendum passed, 9,684 (56%) to 7,701. It did better in the Districts 5, 8 and 7:
District 5 – Councilman John Jerralds Yes: 1231 No: 900 – wins by 58%
District 6 – Councilwoman Jewel Cannada-Wynn Yes: 1284 No: 679 – wins by 61%
District 7 – Councilman Ron Townsend Yes: 855 No: 544 – wins by 61%
I recently asked Studer about the intent behind the Covenant. He said, ‘We wanted local businesses and workers, especially the minorities, to participant and benefit from the millions being spent on the Community Maritime Park.”
The Haas Center for Business Research and Economics would generate a $51 million in payroll for 1,694 employees, with an average salary of $30,000 per worker.
In January 2007, Studer, who was no longer on the CMPA board, emphasized the importance of the Contractor Academy to insure minority contractors got a share of the work.
“What we didn’t want is to have requests for proposals go out and not have smaller contractors capable of bidding,” said Quint Studer (Pensacola News Journal, ‘Minority contractors seek stake in downtown’s building boom,’1/21/07)
(Studer later used the Covenant as his model for the remodeling of the old Gussies Record Shop in the Belmont-DeVilliers neighborhood. Napier Construction partnered with May Construction to renovate the building. The leasee is Five Sisters Blues Café, an African-American-owned restaurant.)
The Covenant with the Community was later incorporated into the Contractor’s Academy/Equal Opportunity Benefits Program Agreement between the CMPA and Maritime Park Development Partners.
As the IN reported in the Buzz of the Nov. 25 issue, George Hawthorne filed an official complaint against MPDP regarding the agreement and asked that the company be removed as the project developer. MPDP filed a response and the EBO Committee of the CMPA voted to not pass the issue on to the full the board.
Still there are those in the minority community who believe the Covenant with the Community isn’t being followed as it was originally intended. Over the next few days, I will report on this blog what were the commitments made, the complaint by Hawthorne, the investigation by CMPA attorney Ed Fleming and the response by CMPA.
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COMMITMENTS MADE BY LAND CAPITAL GROUP
The Covenant with the Community was a key factor in deciding who would be awarded the contract to build the public sector of the CMP. The contract was awarded in 2008 to Land Capital Group headed by Scott Davison.
When Davison presented to the CMPA board in June 2008, his team, which would eventually become MPDP, consisted of
Scott Davison, Land Capital Group – Lead Executive Development Manager
Brass Real Estate Funds/Magi Real Estate, Rick Rodriguez, Owner/CEO – Executive; Jeff Galt, Lead Financial Executive
Bruce Cutright-Project Manager
The Target Group, Joe Williams, President-Minority and Women-owned business inclusion
Architects: HOK Sports, Martin Dinitto; Spencer, Maxwell Bullock
Bullock Tice Associates-Commerical Building Design, Construction Drawings
Nelson-Byrd-Woltz Landscape Architects-Landscape architects
Baskerville-Donovan-Lead civil engineer
Engineering and Planning P.C.-Traffic & state entity coordination
Qore Property Sciences-Environmental engineering
The Normandy Group, CapMark Financial Services-financing
Saxet Realty. The Shopping Center Group, NAI Halford, John Carr & Co.-Marketing
Fisher-Brown, Quinn Insurance-Insurance
BPM-Public Relations
Al Henderson-Photography
Scott Davison led the presentation team before the CMPA in June 2008. Two months later his team was awarded the contract. His commitment to the Covenant with the Community helped him win the contract.
In his opening remarks, Davison said, ‘‘Everything we do will be completely transparent. Because this is a public-private development, we want to make sure the citizens, the board and the city council know exactly what we are doing every step of the way.”