PNJ Headlines: Here’s what’s in the news Tuesday
The latest on the lawsuit involving a pastor and a politician, vote for PNJ’s Student of the Week, and El Asador still on top decade after opening
Pensacola is set to begin purchasing properties surrounding the Long Hollow stormwater pond as part of the Hollice T. Williams stormwater park expansion.
The Pensacola City Council will vote next week to authorize the purchase of 1800 N. Palafox St., a commercial property, for $950,000.
It’s the first of two dozen properties the city is eyeing to expand the stormwater pond as part of the Hollice T. Williams Park project.
The Hollice T. Williams Park project is supposed to increase the stormwater capacity of the city while also transforming the park into a greenway aimed at reconnecting the historically Black and working-class neighborhoods that were split apart by the construction of I-110 in the 1970s.
The lack of stormwater capacity in the area had devastating consequences in the flood of 2014, and residents of the Long Hollow and North Hill neighborhoods have advocated for increasing the capacity of the stormwater pond there.
The city is on a three-year ticking clock with the project as it works to use a $25 million federal grant to design the park and build the stormwater upgrades as the first phase.
Pensacola Mayor Reeves told the News Journal that this land and other properties would help increase the capacity of the stormwater pond.
“The largest single stormwater impact that the Hollice T. Williams project can have is not building a series of new ponds in pipes underneath the interstate. It’s enlarging and enhancing the existing pond that we have right now,” Reeves said. “We will still do those things. You will still see more stormwater infrastructure in the greenway itself, but (expanding the Long Hollow pond), has the largest positive impact that can take place.”
The city canceled a lease for a radio tower on city property last month to clear the way for the pond’s expansion.
The property acquisition up for approval on Thursday is a 0.86-acre commercial lot owned by Robert and Betty McNorton. The McNorton’s purchased the lot in 1999 for $240,000. The small office building on the property was previously leased to The Lakeview Center for specialty programs but is now vacant.
Reeves said this will not be the last land purchase made for the project. One large potential land purchase is the old Escambia County Medical Center Clinic at 1750 N. Palafox St., which has sat empty for decades.
Because of the grant deadlines and that design work for the park is underway, the timeframe for finalizing land purchases is coming to an end.
“We have to know the canvas that we’re dealing with,” Reeves said. “We can’t be a year and a half into this project and say, ‘Oh, well, we just got the property now.”
Construction is expected to begin next year.
