Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves unveiled at his Tuesday, Aug. 13 press conference what he calls “The largest investment in the city’s most iconic street, the New Palafox.”
The project is expected to cost nearly $5 million. It will be designed to make Palafox Street safer, increase the area’s walkability, and make much-needed aesthetic improvements. A significant portion of the project will be funded with parking revenues. All funding sources — Florida Power and Light, city parking and the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) Urban Core — are geographically tied to the downtown area and the New Palafox project. There is no use of general fund dollars.
“We are really pleased at Florida Power and Light to be able to partner with the City of Pensacola on this New Palafox Project, ” Florida Power and Light Northwest Region Vice-President and General Manager J.T. Young said. FPL began upgrading the utility infrastructure in 2018 and just recently finished. “We always want to ensure we restore everything to the original condition. As we were thinking about this, it just made sense to think about how we could partner with the city to accomplish this restoration so that we can give it back even better than it was before.”
The city is working on the project with Jerry Pate Design and Baskerville-Donovan, Inc. Engineering.
Mayor Reeves adds, “The opportunity to repave this area does not come along very often. This is an iconic street, and we have the ability now to make it even better. We are still in the concept phase of this project, including listening to our downtown business owners and citizens.” The concept and design phase are expected to be done between now and winter 2024. The bid process and awarding of the bid are anticipated to begin in early 2025. Construction is slated to start in the spring/summer of 2025, and the completion of the project is yet to be determined.
The city has created TheNewPalafox.com, a webpage dedicated to informing the public about the project which will be updated as the New Palafox Project progresses.
