Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves spent over 30 minutes addressing several issues at his weekly presser on Tuesday afternoon. He covered the new resident satisfaction survey and the repaired down escalator the airport being converted to up. Here are three topics that got my attention:
Inspired Gets More Time
Inspired Communities of Florida has written the City a $60,000 check to exercise its six-month option on Parcels 4 and 5 at the Maritime Park.
- In February 2022, the Pensacola City Council gave conceptual approval for Inspired’s $110 million project called for 600 residential units, up to 50,000 square feet of retail space and a 900-space parking garage. The developer offered to pay half of the garage’s estimated $22 million price tag.
Last November, Inspired sent a letter notifying the city officials its proposed project had become “financially infeasible” and asked for an extension until the market conditions improve.
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Looking for a Fair Shake
Mayor Reeves did address Monday’s email from Escambia Children Trust executive director Tammy Greer regarding the proposed Children’s Resource Center.
“My contention about this is not based on whether this board would eventually support or not support it. I would like it to get on a fair shake to get before the board and for them to be able to evaluate it. And I don’t feel like we’ve gotten a fair shake at that. I feel like this has been nine months of spinning our wheels.
We are now being presented in an email yesterday with seven bullet points of conversations that frankly should have been taking place months ago.”
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- Greer submitted a resignation after 5 p.m. yesterday.
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Funding The Lodges
Mayor Reeves said he was unaware of any financial issues with Re-Entry Alliance Pensacola’s The Lodges. REAP announced on Monday that it’s shutting down the facility on Sept.1.
“This is not something we expected to be squarely in front of us with this kind of deadline,” he said.
“If we do need to have funding, I would like this to be a joint effort. Moving forward needs to be collaborative and to give the county – Wes and everybody -credit, I think that we have made strides in that right now in terms of the joint conversations we’re having about where we go from here.”