Pensacola moving 'aggressively' to write plan to restore the neighborhood 'lost' to I-110
Government is known for moving slowly but Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves hopes to cut a year and a half off of the development of a plan to rebuild Hollice T. Williams Park by combining it with the city's Community Redevelopment Agency once-a-decade update of its redevelopment plan.
The city has three years to start putting the $25 million it was awarded for the Hollice T. Williams Park greenway and stormwater park into use. Under this approach, Reeves told the News Journal that the money will be going to an "equitable framework plan" that will be designed with policies and physical designs aimed at revitalizing the area without losing its character.
The Hollice T. Williams Park project helps address flooding in downtown Pensacola but also looks to reconnect and restore vibrancy to the historically Black and working-class neighborhoods that were split apart by the construction of I-110 in the 1970s. The area has been dubbed the "lost neighborhood" that was gutted with the construction of the I-110 overpass.
A design of the new Hollice T. Williams Park project funded by RESTORE Act funds was completed as Reeves entered office. Reeves selected the project as the subject of his fellowship at the Mayors' Institute on City Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design last year.
Hollice T. Williams Park: Dream of restoring Pensacola's 'Lost Neighborhood' possible with $25.1 million grant
Reeves said the No. 1 piece of feedback he received on the project from other mayors and city design experts was that other cities had done similar things and ended up with a park that still divided the neighborhoods they were meant to connect.
"They built this nice, fancy park, but they didn't do anything in the neighborhood. So, it lost its identity. It lost its way," Reeves said. "So the pitch of doing Hollice T. Williams is to beautify and reconnect a lost neighborhood. Well, you can't do that by merely putting a park in."
Facing a ticking clock
Reeves said the idea of redesigning Hollice T. Williams Park to restore the neighborhood has been in the works for 20 years, and he felt it couldn't move forward without a framework plan in place so it wouldn't become another nice park that made no difference to the vulnerable community around it.
"(In other cities, they said) 'we've turned that old, blighted thing into this beautiful park,'" Reeves said. "Well, then, the neighborhood changed, and not just housing and gentrification, which is the first thing that comes to mind. Right? And that's part of it. But also, you may have this nice park, but the struggle in that neighborhood might be jobs. It might be opportunity for jobs. It might be small businesses in more vulnerable neighborhoods are significantly less likely to succeed. It might be all of those things. The park is great, but did it bring the neighborhood up with it?"
Last year, Pensacola won a $25 million grant from the Rebuild Florida Infrastructure Repair Program to spend on stormwater aspects of Hollice T. Williams. Reeves said with the grant, the park would need another redesign because there was an actual budget to work with, and the equitable framework plan had to come before the redesign.
"If we were starting from scratch right now and just said, 'OK, let's develop a framework plan project from ground zero.' Well, that's 12 to 18 months," Reeves said.
That wasn't going to work with the three-year ticking clock on the $25 million grant.
Reeves and city staff held calls to find out the details of what goes into writing a framework plan.
"We asked the question to these experts, and we we had follow-up technical assistance calls with them. And we said, OK, we've never done it. Nowhere in this city or county has that ever been done, for sure. So tell us about this process,' Reeves said. "As we dig a little deeper in the process, and it honestly works almost exactly like a CRA update."
That's when the decision was made to combine the two efforts together.
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Pensacola CRA plan to be updated
A CRA plan update for 2024 was already in the works as Reeves became mayor in 2022.
For any funds to be spent in a CRA, it has to meet a goal or objective listed in the official CRA plan, and the city's CRA plans have become outdated.
The city has three CRA districts. The largest, the Urban Core CRA, last had a plan in 2010, while the Westside CRA plan dates to 2007 and the Eastside CRA plan dates to 2004.
The City Council approved hiring Urban Design Associates out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania under a $659,000 contract to write new plans for all three CRAs and Hollice T. Williams Park using an equitable framework plan model in February.
The group has set up a plan website at www.engagetheteam.com/planupdateCRA and dubbed the effort: "Block-by-Block: Restoring Neighborhoods."
The group is beginning a lightning round of public workshops next week.
Westside Workshop on Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Sanders Beach-Corrine Jones Resource Center
Local business owner meeting (RSVP recommended) on Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. at City Hall
Urban Core Workshop (lunch session, RSVP recommended) on Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Saenger Theater
Urban Core Workshop on Thursday from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at Spring Street Library
Eastside Workshop on Thursday from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Spring Street Library
Equitable Development Plan (Hollice T. Williams Park) public meeting (RSVP Recommended, continental refreshments provided) on Friday 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. at City Hall
Virtual Workshop on the CRA plan updates and equitable development framework plan on June 11 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. A link will be provided on the CRA plan website.
All four plans will look at both design elements and policy changes that can be made by the city to improve neighborhoods in the CRAs and within 0.5 miles of Hollice T. Williams Park.
CRA Manager Victoria D'Angelo said it was an "aggressive timeline" for some many public workshops in a short period of time.
"The reason that it is an aggressive timeline is because of the grant funding that we received for the park, and because it's dovetailing together, we wish it wasn't so aggressive, but we're trying to work around what we have with that," D'Angelo said.
What comes next?
Along with the public workshops, Urban Design Associates will conduct studies on the land uses in the four areas, analyze the socio-economic and demographic trends, analysis the real estate market, classify and map unique areas, transportation and public open spaces and study impact and source of gentrification and displacement in all four areas.
Most of the grant must be spent of stormwater infrastructure in the park, so it will be a multiple phase project. Reeves said the city will continue to look for other sources of funding to build out the rest of the park.
Reeves is also working to form a citizen volunteer group to advise the city about the park and the way the community interacts with it called the "Friends of Hollice T. Williams Park."
The request for qualifications for a design also mentions that the city is interested in purchasing up to 25 properties around the Longhollow stormwater pond to expand the stormwater capacity of the project.
As those plans move forward, the city is in the process of selecting the firm that will do the actual redesign of Hollice T. Williams Park. A selection committee met on May 16 and their recommendation will soon go to City Council to select a firm. Reeves said Wednesday he didn't know if he could legally comment on the selection until it is ready to go to City Council.
Reeves said whichever firm is selected, they will incorporate the equitable framework plan that comes out of Urban Design Associate's work.
But it's not just the design firm who will have to make changes, as Reeves said that plan could very well include policy changes or recommendations that are critical of current city practices and policies.
"They can recommend all sorts of things, and again, there's precedent in this all over the country in much bigger cities," Reeves said. "I'm proud of this step because it's never been done (in Pensacola). I'm proud of it because of its intentionality to bring up the neighborhood, and not just bring up the park."
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola moving 'aggressively' to write plan to restore neighborhoods
