Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves held his weekly press conference today. Here are some of my takeaways:
Bay Bluffs
The Bay Bluffs walkway will be demolished, and the mayor isn’t sure what will replace it.
“We are closing that indefinitely at this point,” Mayor Reeves said. “We are estimating roughly $1 million-plus in repairs; we don’t have anything in the budget for that at the moment. So we are going to secure it as best we can do the demolition as best we can. If there’s anything that we can preserve up by the road or by the parking lots that can still save for people to use, we will do that. But more to come on, what we definitely want to replace it with something. It may not be the exact same trail, but we aren’t saying that we’re closing it forever.”
Pensacola Motor Lodge
The inspectors found no asbestos at the Pensacola Motor Lodge. The mayor said, “That’s good news. We have a little bit more environmental work to do there, but we feel pretty good about the quality of the environmental.”
He added, “Our CRA department is working with Florida Housing and others about building the first template that we would have for some kind of RFP agreement where we’d go out, put units, and try to get them into the affordable inventory and work with someone in the private sector to be able to do that.”
Misc
With all the proposals for new hotels to be built in downtown, the mayor said the city is reexamining its License to Use (LTU) agreements regarding the use of public parking. The mayor believes it may be time to relook at structure parking to deal with the public and private parking needs.
The UWF Haas Center’s Resident Satisfaction Survey closed on Friday, Sept. 15. About 1,800 surveys were completed.
Mayor Reeves commented on American Magic’s victory in the 37th America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta.
“It has no impact on the America’s Cup in terms of winning it next year, but when you beat out the team that’s defending the America’s Cup to win a regatta. That’s always a good sign about your crew and all the amazing people that helped make that organization that helped make that boat successful. Super excited for them and it’s very nice to have our professional home team over there representing and being the best in the world, at least this weekend. So that was great.”