Downtown Pensacola business owners fear that the impact of Reimagining Palafox’s construction will be devastating for them. At the Pensacola City Council meeting on October 23, several owners warned that the expected length and disruption of construction threatened their small, local businesses.
Project: Reimagining Palafox is a $10.3-million streetscape transformation focused on improving safety, walkability, and aesthetics across the four blocks between Garden and Main streets. The project shuts down the street from January to June.
Acknowledging the five-month disruption, Mayor D. C. Reeves said in his presser last week that the city is making a significant financial commitment to support downtown businesses during the construction period. He has assigned Strategic Initiatives Project Officer Adrianne Walker to serve as the city’s primary point of contact for the project, working directly with businesses and citizens.
The construction contract includes a $780,000 bonus to be paid to the contractor if the project is completed by Memorial Day, an investment the city is making to get the “beautiful transformational change” finished as soon as possible.
The city will voluntarily forgo parking revenue by making on-street parking free in surrounding areas, including all of Jefferson Street and potentially parts of Garden Street, to maintain customer accessibility. The mayor has also allocated funds to hiring an outside consultant or PR firm to run a proactive marketing campaign, collaborating with the Downtown Improvement Board (DIB) to ensure citizens know “we’re still open.”
Can Businesses Survive Disruption?
The project’s current design, described by Innerlight owner J.B. Schluter as a “band-aid off approach,” was originally a 20-week plan but has now been extended to 26 weeks.
Nathan Holler, who owns The Dog House on Palafox Street, presented a letter expressing the merchants’ concerns, stating that a “six-month period of construction noise and road closure on our main commercial corridor will be devastating to local merchants who cannot withstand the level of disruption”.
- Holler warned that this disruption could lead to the “shuttering of longstanding businesses and replacing them with chains or outside developers, eroding the local character that defines Palafox Street.”
“This is a huge ask of small business owners,” said jeweler Patrick Elebash, “Many are legitimately scared.”
- He reminded council members about the impact of FPL’s utility work on Palafox a few years ago. “It still took less than three weeks for businesses to realize this was not sustainable.”
Banker Hank Gonzalez echoed this financial concern, stating, “Very few small businesses can sustain a loss of 50 to 80% of their sales for five months.”
- He noted the project impacts crucial retail periods, including Spring Break, Easter, and Memorial Day.
Mari Carmen Josephs, owner of Carmen’s Lunch Bar for 13 years, said the street closure “provides a grave threat to many of our businesses that are already struggling in a post-pandemic time.”
- She tearfully added, “I do believe that pulling the trigger on this project, as it stands, could truly be the nail in the coffin to many of our businesses, mine included.”
Schluter said, “I mean, 60% of my business is done in those five to six months.”
- He added, I’ve never had one customer come in and go, ‘Your sidewalks are really too small.’”
Parking: “Pink Elephant in the Room”
A dominant theme among speakers was the project’s failure to address downtown’s critical parking problem—a problem the new design may actually worsen. The mayor’s plan aims to mitigate this by making on-street parking free in surrounding areas, including the entire length of Jefferson Street. However, this is not enough for many merchants.
Elebash stated, “We do not have a pedestrian or sidewalk problem on Palafox. What we do have is a parking problem.”
- He added, “This project will remove about 22 prime parking spots on Palafox spots that a famous parking consultant described to me as the most valuable spots in all of downtown Pensacola.”
Schluter said he’s “had hundreds of people complain about the parking” and called it the “pink elephant in the room.” Holler’s letter also pointed out that the plan “eliminates an unknown number of spaces” and that parking issues already “deter customers.”
Questions of Alternatives and Necessity
Many speakers called on the council to reconsider or delay the project, particularly since $3 million has been allotted by Florida Power for road repaving after utility work.
- Josephs suggested that “repaving the roads with the $3 million” and foregoing the more extensive project would suffice at this time.
Schluter encouraged the council to “shelf this plan right now, mill that road, just repave it, and then come back and look at other ways to beautify downtown“. He also questioned the value of the sidewalk widening, noting the engineer stated they are “only widening the sidewalks by six inches.”