Pensacola wants just over two million dollars in RESTORE Act funding, to build a marina at Community Maritime Park.
Rebecca Ferguson, the city’s Economic Policy Coordinator, told the Community Maritime Parks Associates that the proposal is currently in draft form. The project title is “A Maritime Sports Tourism Development/Maritime Infrastructure Project.”
“What that means is basically, the project proposes to examine and construct a 48-slip, public day-use marina,” said Ferguson. “Providing access to waterways adjacent to Pensacola Bay. The project will support the development of water-related, sporting and marine tourism events – kayaking and tournament fishing, etc.”
RESTORE monies will come from the settlement with BP over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. The total payout for Escambia County is around $70 million. All proposals must be submitted by next Wednesday to be considered for a slice of the pie.
From there, the RESTORE committee is scheduled to meet every two weeks, beginning in late October for about a month, to rank the projects. After that, they must be approved by the Escambia County Commission, which will send the proposals to the U-S Department of Treasury. Ferguson says that timeline’s expected to take a couple of years.
“End of November, 2015, the RESTORE Committee rankings,” said Ferguson. “February 2016 is the approved list that’s going to be submitted. Late 2016, the Treasury review, and then the projects that have been approved will be funded and implementation will begin in 2017.”
The Escambia County Commission began work earlier this year with the RESTORE Act Advisory Committee, and the consultant hired to draft the implementation plan.
“The idea is that the plan comes together, and then projects will be judged against the plan. And that will lead us to what the projects are,” said Escambia County Commissioner Grover Robinson, also serves as Chairman of the Florida Gulf Consortium for the RESTORE Act.
Once the plan is set, they’ll be looking for projects that will be graded against that plan. The projects that can help immediately in realizing the goals of the plan will be given first dibs.
For now, the City of Pensacola’s Rebecca Ferguson says plans are to do a little preliminary work at the marina site.
“We’re going to be looking at hiring a dive team to complete some underwater investigation,” said Ferguson. “And let us know about the obstructions that currently exist. Then we’re going to be focused on removal of hazards to navigation.”
Besides the prospect of hosting regattas and fishing tournaments, Ferguson says they’re also pushing the possibility that kayaking and water-boarding can be offered at the marina.
The day marina proposal comes up just as the breakwater needed to protect it has been completed for the most part, at a cost of $1.7 million. Both had been included in the original Maritime Park blueprint.
