Rick's Blog

Stroberger throws shade on local developer

OLF-8

District 1 County Commissioner Steve Stroberger wants Beulah Town Center, the development group headed by Fred Hemmer, to purchase OLF 8, a 540-acre site located in Beulah that Escambia County acquired in a land swap with the Navy for $17.3 million. At last week’s commission meeting, he threw shade at Hemmer’s competitor, Tri-W, to pressure county staff to recommend Hemmer and persuade his fellow commissioners to “trust his judgment after extensive research.”

Name-Calling

Stroberger’s motion last week: “I move that we have the county staff evaluate both PSAs from both Tri-W (Chad Henderson) and Beulah Town Center (Hemmer) and …that means taking both offers side by side and give this board some feedback.”

Then he added, “Additionally, I think that we should have purchasing assess the developing partners because I think they’re starkly different. One does really good strip malls. The other one has been doing planned grand plan communities for a very, very long time. And I think that once they do that, once they take a look at that, they’re going to see the difference between the two and which one we should have the difference. I’m telling you, there’s a significant difference between both of these developers.”


BACKGROUND: In January, Inweekly analyzed Tri-W Development Group. Catalyst HRE partnered with Alabama-based commercial real estate developer Jim Wilson and Associates (JWA) and former Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward to form Tri-W Development LLC.

JWA is a 50-year-old company with a portfolio that includes projects such as the Riverchase Galleria, located just outside of Birmingham, and the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge.

OLF-8 Master Plan – the one Blackwell and Moore love – allocates 271 acres to commerce and industrial and only 61 acres solely for residential. Another 45 acres are for public amenities, such as a town center, and 47 acres have been allocated for a mixed-use center, such as residential over retail and office over retail.


Pushback

Stroberger’s snide remark did little to persuade his fellow commissioners to trust his judgment.

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