Pensacola's first grants office rakes in $72M in grants. Here's how they'll impact the city

Brandon Girod, Pensacola News Journal
·5 min read

When Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves took office, one of the first things he did was consolidate the city of Pensacola’s grant application process by creating the city’s first grants office. Since its inception eight months ago, that office has earned $72 million in grants.

The money from those grants has gone toward repairing damage from Hurricane Sally, cybersecurity programs, job growth, Triumph Gulf Coast and more.

Before Reeves’ administration implemented the new grants office, each department was required to independently find and apply for their own grants. The process is simpler now that those departments can work with the grants office to apply and manage the grants they receive.

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Pensacola grant awards

Here’s a look at how that grant money has been used in Pensacola, and a peek at pending grant awards yet to come.

  • FL Cybersecurity Grant — Pensacola received $69,141.38 from the state to enhance the city's cybersecurity capabilities.

  • Hurricane Sally Infrastructure Repair Program - CDBG-DR Fricker Center — The city of Pensacola received $5.5 million from the Rebuild Florida Infrastructure Repair Program to demolish and rebuild the Fricker Resource Center, which serves various community needs.

  • Hurricane Sally Infrastructure Repair Program - CDBG-DR HTW Stormwater Park — Pensacola received $25,082 for redevelopment and storm resiliency of the Hollice T. Williams Stormwater Park. This project will include stormwater, flood mitigation, and other green infrastructure improvements to the linear park to reduce area flooding and boost community resiliency.

  • CDBG-DR Hometown Rev Cervantes/Pace — Pensacola received $5 million for the redevelopment for commercial use of the Cervantes and Pace Boulevard corridor. This project includes acquiring, preparing and potentially rehabilitating within low- and moderate-income areas along West Cervantes Street and Pace Boulevard. The purpose of this project is to prevent and eliminate conditions of slum and blight by facilitating redevelopment within these commercial corridors.

  • CDBG-DR Hometown Rev Baptist Property — Pensacola received $5 million for the site acquisition and preparation within the former Baptist Health Care campus. This project’s purpose is to address potential blighting conditions that may result from the hospital’s relocation to Brent Lane by facilitating the reuse of the former campus.

  • CDBG-DR Housing Repair and Replacement Program — Pensacola received $5,861,500 to provide funding to income-eligible city residents to make repairs or replace their primary residence due to damage from Hurricane Sally.

  • Post Security Grant (FEMA and Coast Guard) — The city was awarded $493,336 for a new mobile command center, which will serve as a centralized command center for the Pensacola Police Department and Pensacola Fire Department when responding to critical incidents. With the addition of the mobile command center, PPD will be able to improve interagency communications and streamline operations when addressing critical incidents, through the use of upgraded equipment and advanced technology.

  • Governor’s Job Growth Grant Fund — Pensacola received $3.9 million to design and construct a dock, boat ramp and redesign a warehouse to accommodate the establishment of the high-performance maritime center that will allow the American Magic team to establish a long-term presence at the project site and create 150 new, high-paying jobs.

  • Triumph Gulf Coast — The city of Pensacola received $8.5 million from Triumph Gulf Coast, which will include design, renovation and completion of the partially completed Warehouse 10 at the Port of Pensacola. Renovations will include a 50-foot addition, along with the design and construction of a dock and boat ramp.

  • USDOT Safe Streets for ALL — The City of Pensacola has been awarded $176,000 in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets for All program to improve roadway safety by significantly reducing roadway fatalities and serious injuries through safety action plan development, refinement and implementation. The grant dollars will be used by the city to pilot and evaluate temporary roadway enhancements, such as shared lane markings and curb extensions, on Gonzalez Street — a two-mile corridor on the city's High-Injury Network that has the potential to be a neighborhood greenway.

Note: The city has yet to receive the funding agreements from the state for the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recover (CDBG-DR) grants from the state, so those projects have not been implemented yet.

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List of pending grant awards

  • Fricker Center — $4,000,000

  • Bayfront/main multi-use path projects (SUN Trail) — $6,400,000

  • Federal Rail Administration Corridor ID Grant — $500,000

  • USDOT Connecting Communities (three applications) — $44,000,000

  • Several stormwater and resiliency grants

What are grants?

In its most basic form, a grant consists of funds awarded to a person, business or group by organizations with no expectation of being repaid.

Why do cities apply for grants?

Cities earn revenue from a variety of sources. The most common are things like property taxes, sales and use taxes and user charges (charges for the use of a service). Cities then apply for grants to help fund projects that exceed their operational budgets. For cities, grants can come from federal, state and private sources.

Pensacola has used grants to help pay for several improvements, from repairing hurricane damage to expanding public services.

What’s the grant process like for a city?

Applying for grants can be a challenging process. Prior to the creation of the grants office, each Pensacola department was responsible for finding appropriate grants and applying for them on their own.

That involved coming up with a proposal to submit to the organization offering the grant. These proposals, or applications, require that cities spend a large amount of time and resources researching and planning out the proposal.

The majority of grants are offered on a yearly basis and each program has requirements that applicants must meet to be eligible. Once applications are submitted, they are then compared to requests from other cities. Limited funds mean not everyone can get a slice of the pie, making the stakes high.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola grabbed $72M in grants. Here's how they'll impact the city