Major construction disruptions are expected with the “Reimagine Palafox Street” project next year, but whether they’ll last five months or the entire year is an open question, if the project moves forward.
The “Reimagine Palafox Street” project will cover Palafox Street from Garden Street to Main Street with wider sidewalks, crosswalks, brick pavers and better drainage. The large scale project will require essentially rebuilding the road from the dirt up, and the street will have to be completely closed.
The city has two options for how to go about closing one of its most popular locations and the lifeblood of dozens of downtown businesses:
The first option is to close the entire street to cars for about five months, with sidewalks still accessible.
The second option is to have the work proceed block-by-block, but the city estimates that option will take 14 weeks for each block, dragging the entire project out a little over a year.
The issue has caused anxiety among downtown business owners about how the construction will impact them.
Meanwhile, the growing cost estimates of the project have outrun its original funding, and the city will have to determine how to make up the shortfall or what to cut from the project to make it happen.
Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves said that he believes there is a consensus among downtown business owners, though not 100% agreement, with the first option, which he calls “ripping the Band-aid” approach to just get the work done as quickly as possible.
“The benefits of that were multiple, in my opinion,” Reeves said. “One: we can start it on Jan. 2, after the holiday season, which is very important to many downtown businesses, and we can be done, as of our current engineering estimate, we can be done by Memorial Day.”
Reeves pointed out there would be no construction during hurricane season, which could delay the project. In the block-by-block approach, if workers discover an archeological site, then work grinds to a stop, while in the first option, work can just move to a different part of the project while archeological work is done. A similar archeological find of 18th Century British artifacts stopped FPL’s work on Jefferson Street until a University of West Florida archeological team documented the find.
Reeves said he felt like he had experienced all the “stages of life or grief” with the project.
At first people didn’t like the design, but now they like it, but there’s concern over the construction portion.
“What we’re into now I totally understand, I don’t mean to discount it,” Reeves said. “You own a small business, and the street’s going to be shut down for five months or 10 months, depending on which way it goes. I’d have anxiety too, but this is an investment in our city, and there’s not one construction investment that doesn’t come with inconvenience.”
However, he said at this point, the issue is moot because the decision will have to be made after the city gets bids on the two options to see which option is more feasible.
What is the “Reimagine Palafox” project?
The “Reimagine Palafox” project originated from the Florida Power and Light project to upgrade the power grid in downtown Pensacola. Those upgrades required tearing up large sections of Palafox Street, and FPL was obligated to pay for repaving the street.
When Reeves entered office, the city was a few months from executing an agreement with the power company to repave the street, but he proposed using the money as a starting point to radically improve the street.
“This is our iconic street that we brag about, which was considered one of the 10 greatest main streets in the United States,” Reeves said in 2024. “Let’s make sure that we’re taking a good look at this when we’re going to go in and do millions of dollars of work, even if it’s FPL doing it.”
FPL ultimately paid the city $3 million to fund the project.
What will the project cost?
Before any real design work had been done, city officials were hoping the entire project would cost about $5 million.
Now that designs are complete, rising construction costs and the addition of security bollards in the wake of the New Orleans terrorist attack, the estimated cost of the project is now about $9 million.
The city is set to seek bidders to build the project, but the main goal of seeking bids at this point is to get an answer from contractors on how much the project will cost.
Reeves has proposed using $4 million allocated to the Hashtag Project to fund the Palafox project, but the City Council at this point isn’t willing to go that far. The council rejected transferring the money to the project in a 6-1 vote on July 14, but still approved the city seeking bids to find out the true cost of the project.
The issue of where to find the $4 million will have to be worked out between the mayor and the council once the bids come back to council approval, likely this fall.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Close Palafox? How long Reimagine Palafox takes depends on answer