Mayor Grover Robinson mentioned this on Monday.
Jennifer Grove, Vice President, External Relation: “Baptist has selected The Paces Foundation/Soho Housing Partners to transform a portion of this campus for the future of our community. We are excited about this affordable housing opportunity that can positively impact both individual prosperity and community and economic development.”
Helpful information for the story:
- For the first phase of the E and Moreno Street campus redevelopment, Baptist received three offers – each for a limited portion of the campus to develop multi-family affordable rental housing. Only one offer could be selected.
- Baptist selected Paces Foundation/Soho Housing, a not-for-profit affordable housing development partnership.
- The Paces/Soho plan offered elements of the campus redevelopment vision that Baptist has been working with the community to create since the new campus announcement was made in June 2019.
- In addition to offering the maximum number of units, the Paces/Soho proposal includes:
- A 112-unit multifamily rental with a combination of 1, 2, 3 and 4-bedroom units
- A 102-unit senior affordable multifamily rental project
- Ground floor space for services and amenities
- Parks/ playground/ recreation and communal areas
- Engaging the community in design
- Paces/Soho will purchase about 10 of the 51-acre campus to build these multi-family projects.
- Paces/Soho has proven its commitment in our area with the Fairfield Manor, Century Park and Brownsville Manor developments.
- The Paces/Soho projects are contingent on receiving Florida Housing Finance Corporation (FHFC) 4% and/or 9% competitive tax credit financing.
- Paces/Soho will ask the Pensacola City Council at the December 15 meeting to provide the Local Government Area of Opportunity (LGAO) and the required $460,000 financial support for a 9% application for the senior affordable rental development that the developers will submit to FHFC. This support tells the state that the city is invested in the project which gives this project additional scoring points.
- The developer applications are due at the end of December to FHFC for both projects.
- Initial scoring by FHFC will be public in early 2023. Final awards will be granted to the selected developers and projects in Spring of 2023.
- Baptist Hospital hopes to continue to work with the City, Escambia County and other stakeholders to determine how to best move forward on the next phase of redevelopment for the campus.