The City of Pensacola and Mayor D.C. Reeves are hosting a Public Open House on Wednesday, June 26, from 4 to 7 p.m. at City Hall, 222 West Main Street. This is the latest step in Pensacola’s Strategic Planning process.
The Open House will feature several food trucks and door prizes. Those who stop by City Hall and participate in the interactive stations will receive food truck vouchers and be entered to win one of a handful of prizes, such as a 50″ smart TV, Nintendo Switch, and more.
The city has partnered with Gehl, a renowned urban design and strategy firm, to help craft Pensacola’s Strategic Plan process, “Strive to Thrive: 2035.” The process includes robust citywide engagement, focus groups, and research into the city’s strengths, opportunities, and how Pensacola can anticipate and take advantage of global trends. Once finished, the plan will cast a vision for the next decade of investments and set key goals and priorities.
Following a policy analysis phase exploring topics like attainable housing, active mobility and economic development, Gehl is now asking Pensacola residents to make their voices heard to help shape this vision.
The city has just launched the Strive to Thrive Pensacola 2035 Visioning Survey, an online public survey to provide input that will shape the comprehensive vision for Pensacola. Anyone who lives, works, or visits Pensacola is invited to participate. The survey builds on Pensacola’s Resident Satisfaction Survey and invites the public to share their perception of Pensacola today and ideas about what the future of Pensacola should be. The survey will help the project team identify priority goals and initiatives that will help make Pensacola a more equitable, livable and resilient city.
The Visioning Survey will be live through July 31. It complements other engagement efforts, such as pop-up surveys held during various public events across the city over the past three months.
Gehl is an urban design and research consultancy offering expertise in the fields of urban design, master planning, strategy and city planning. Gehl addresses global trends with a people-focused approach, utilizing empirical analysis to understand how the built environment can promote well-being. They apply this analysis to strategic planning and human-centered design to empower citizens, decision-makers, company leaders, and organizations. Gehl’s work is based on the human dimension – the effect of the built environment on social interaction between people. Gehl considers lively and widely used public spaces to be vital keys to quality of life in cities and to overall well-being. Gehl has led city vision plans and strategies in hundreds of cities around the globe, from Buenos Aires to Charlotte to West Palm Beach.
