Pensacola seeking another $4 million for upgrades to the Fricker Resource Center

Pensacola is seeking a $4 million grant to help upgrade the Fricker Neighborhood Resource Center.

If the city is successful, it will have $9.5 million to put toward an upgrade of the Fricker Center, and Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves said what the new or upgraded center will look like will depend largely on what the community says it wants.

“What we've always talked about at Fricker was, if we could find the funding, that we make sure that what we rebuild isn't just to rebuild what's already there, but to rebuild something that the community needs and the community wants there,” Reeves said during his regular press conference Tuesday.

Located at 900 F St., the center is the oldest community center in the city and sees regular use from nearby residents, regional users and serves as one of four centers that offers after-school programming.

Fricker Center is the only community center that offers free use of fitness equipment.

Pensacola resident Charles Green was using the equipment at the center on Wednesday.

Green said he’s glad to hear the city is looking to reinvest in the center and would like to see the gym equipment updated.

“It’s been in the community forever,” Green said. “We love this place.”

L.A. Johnston, a long-time member of the Pensacola Table Tennis Club that meets twice a week at the Fricker Center, said the facility works well for their club despite its age.

“I know they’ve had problems with heating and air out there and electoral problems also with breakers going bad and stuff like that,“ Johnston said. “As far as ideas of what needs to be done, that’s not really in my scope of work. I’m lucky they let me play in there.”

Johnston noted that their club used to meet in the old Bayview Community Center before it was torn down and replaced with the new center.

“Naturally, I’m concerned that we’re going to get kicked out of the Fricker Center when they start wanting to remodel it as well, but hopefully that would just be a temporary situation,” Johnston said.

In July, the city was awarded a $5.5 million grant through a Hurricane Sally disaster recovery grant administered by the state of Florida.

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The city is now seeking an additional $4 million through the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity’s Office of Broadband.

As part of the grant process, the city is seeking public comment on the Fricker Center on its website until Oct. 16.

Reeves said the comments are required as part of the grant, but that will not be the community’s final say in what happens to the Fricker Center.

Reeves said the city would use best practices of cities around the country to truly engage the community to try and reach those who may be too busy to come out to a single town hall event.

“I can't speak to exactly what we will or won't do for each project, but I've really been enlightened about what other communities are doing – not just have a meeting, but to go into the community and really learn what they want,” Reeves said.

The city is looking to add a potential on-site health clinic, computer classrooms and expanded library services at the facility with the grant.

“What we would see is a potential future Fricker where there would be a career source, community health, those types of engagements right there in the neighborhood at the community center," Reeves said. “You can imagine to have that amount of funding to revitalize Fricker Center and to be able to do it in ways that are even more functional than ever to help the community would be a really great thing.”

Reeves said no decision has been made on whether the center will be torn down and replaced or renovated.

“It’s probably too early to say for sure that we would. I think we would look at both options," Reeves said.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola seeking $4 million for the Fricker Community Center