The City of Pensacola earned a $1 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that will help support two projects on Pensacola’s Westside.
This is the City’s first Brownfield Multipurpose Grant from the EPA. Multipurpose Grants may be used for assessments, cleanup activities, and brownfield redevelopment analysis – all activities that are key to repurposing blighted properties.
The former Gibson School building and the Baptist Hospital Legacy Campus were the prioritized projects in the application.
“This grant will be put to good use for our community,” said Mayor D.C. Reeves. “The application was submitted in January and to hear that we received the maximum ask in this category of grant is great news. Our team is getting to work on recommendations for the highest and best use of this award.”
This grant can be used for environmental assessment and cleanup activities across both the priority sites and the Westside Community Redevelopment Area.
By early September, the Community Redevelopment Agency hopes to have completed a structural assessment of the former Gibson School building on North C Street. The limited assessment by Moran Consultants given to the City in May 2025, showed that the building, built in 1921, needed nearly $1.3 million in immediate and short-term repairs. Those repairs included the roof, windows, the fire suppression system, flooring, HVAC, doors, water/sewer, and much more.
A complete structural assessment is crucial to identify all deficiencies and providing a phased scope of work to bring the structure into compliance. Saving the Gibson School is important to preserving Pensacola’s past and to the ongoing revitalization efforts in West Pensacola.
The Baptist Legacy Campus is undergoing a revitalization effort that is currently focused on demolition of the existing, vacant buildings on the site at West Moreno Street.
Pensacola was the only Brownfield Multipurpose Grant award recipient in Region 4, which is comprised of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Region 4 received 31 awards total in this round of funding, with the others being Assessment and Cleanup grants. The full list is here.
EPA’s Brownfields Program began in 1995 and, once these grants are awarded, will have provided over $3 billion in grant funding to assess and clean up contaminated properties and return blighted properties to productive reuse, according to the EPA.
