Downtown Pensacola Hawkshaw plan shifts again, and city has little say in the matter

Editor's note: This story has been updated to provide more context about affordable housing once planned for the site.

Plans for the historied Hawkshaw development have changed again, now focusing around the idea of for-sale condos rather than for-rent apartments due to volatile shifts in the construction market that developers say have made the project cost spike.

The move, however, has caused friction for the Pensacola City Council that is frustrated that a parcel once envisioned as affordable housing on a property that had a history of Black neighborhood displacement will now be market rate condominiums.

The Hawkshaw property was once a city-owned lot at Ninth Avenue and Romana Street near downtown, and a piece of land touted for its potential as a catalyst to downtown development. News Journal archives indicate a mixed-use development known as Hawkshaw Village was approved in 2006 and promised to bring nearly 100 units of affordable housing to downtown Pensacola, but it folded in 2009 with the downturn in the economy.

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It was sold in 2017 to developer Robert Montgomery for $1.6 million after a decade of the Community Redevelopment Agency deciding how best to use the land. The plan at the time called for 39 condos with an estimated price tags in the $600,000 range.

The plan was also to create a multi-use space including retail, restaurants and real estate, a plan that shifted in 2021 to a 208-unit, residential-only complex and as of this week, a likely 80-unit condo complex.

Architect Brian Spencer, a former City Council member himself and the representative of Hawkshaw, said this week that the group still has good intentions but has been squeezed into this model by the ever-shifting cost of construction, supplies and labor.

"As we get closer and closer to getting our construction pricing estimates completed, the gap between what the Pensacola metro market can afford to rent as opposed to what it is costing to build a quality construction building — one that we would consider to be enduring and one that is consistent with the developer's track record thus far — that gap is becoming increasingly worrisome," Spencer said.

He referenced a recent report saying the cost of construction has increased by about 20% in the last year, and the Pensacola area hasn't kept up.

"The tolerance or ability for renters has not tracked with that same cost," he said. There is not yet a price range determined for the condos.

Hawkshaw representatives need to present updates to the Community Redevelopment Agency monthly under their contract with the city, but a point of contention this week has been that the City Council, acting as the CRA board, has little recourse to stop or shift any change in plans that developers present.

CRA Chairwoman Teniadé Broughton has been the most outspoken against the direction of Hawkshaw, saying it's been "one of the worst experiences" for her as a CRA board member, comparing the development to the condos at Aragon.

"This was treated as if the value is only money, and we could have had the opportunity to do so much better with this area and we chose not to. ... We have no protections to stop it, to adjust it, to plead the case, that's beyond us right now and the only thing legally we can do is let it happen and that's a sad state of affairs," she said.

Councilman Delarian Wiggins made note that under the agreement documents, the developers could pay a fine up to $100,000 to completely remove any responsibility to involve the CRA in the development at all.

CRA Administrator Helen Gibson said her office would need to look closer at documents to determine if and when there are more approvals needed by the CRA in the project scope, but said it's her understanding as of this week there's little the city can do to change course on the project.

"We did at the time utilize outside attorneys to assist us with the drafting of the terms and conditions for the property and relied upon that legal counsel but as things have progressed, it's just become clear that the conditions we've had in place were not sufficient to give us any real traction, if you will," Gibson said at Monday's CRA meeting.

Hawkshaw Development Group is expected to present to the CRA again next month under its regular schedule.

Emma Kennedy can be reached at ekennedy@pnj.com or 850-480-6979.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Hawkshaw in downtown Pensacola shifts again to condo development