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Escambia Commissioners Pick Developer And $50 Million Offer For OLF-8
January 10, 2025
in a deal years in the making, the Escambia County Commission Thursday night selected a developer for the OLF-8 property on Nine Mile Road in Beulah.
With a unanimous vote, the commission selected Beulah Town Center (BTC) and a revised bid of $50 million for the for the complete 540 acres using a DPZ Master Plan approved in 2021 as a restrictive deed. The county attorney and staff were tasked with negotiating a final sale agreement within 30 days.
“I want to thank you,” Fred Hemmer of Beulah Town Center said. “We’ve been working on this for five or six years. I know it’s been very frustration to all of you. us, the people behind us. Thank you for your patience, and we look forward to delivering.”
The 5-0 approval came after a previous motion to select BTC failed and another developer pulled out and left the meeting.
Earlier in the meeting, District 1 Commissioner Steve Stroberger made a similar motion seconded by Mike Kohler to negotiate with BTC for $50 million The motion failed with Lumon May, Ashlee Hofberger and Steven Barry voting against BTC.
Hofberger then offered a motion seconded by Barry to negotiate with Chad Henderson and TRI-W Development for 30 days for an amount not to fall below their $42.5 million offer.
May and Kohler said they could not turn down $50 million and vote for $7.5 million less and wanted to hear a hard number from TRI-W.
“Knowing what you know now, where are you at?” Hofberger asked Henderson. He said the group would negotiate an amount higher than the $42.5 million, but they wanted to make a final offer based upon negotiations.
“I can tell you I will be competitive with those offers through a negotiation of understanding the entire aspect of a purchase and sale agreement,” he said. When commissioners continued to press for a dollar figure, Henderson rescinded their offer and the group walked out.
A third offer for $45 million was on the table from Ryan Bell and Beulah Ranch, LLC.
In January 2019, Escambia County acquired OLF-8 in a land swap with the U.S. Navy for property in Santa Rosa County. The county hired DPZ CoDesign to develop the best plan for OLF-8, and the firm presented four plans ranging from a commerce park based concept to designs with a mix of commerce, residential and green space on the 500 plus acre site along Nine Mile Road in Beulah.
The final DPZ master plan approved in July 2021 is a combination of commerce, residential and amenities. It allocates 271 acres to commerce and industrial; 61 acres to residential including duplexes, townhomes and multifamily; 47 acres to a mixed-use center such as residential over retail and office over retail; and 45 acres to trails and public amenities such as a post office, school, day care and community garden.
Click graphics to enlarge.
Comments
19 Responses to “Escambia Commissioners Pick Developer And $50 Million Offer For OLF-8”
I grew up near this parcel of land, still have Family living nearby. The nightmare
that is trying to exit I-10 West onto Pine Forest, then North to 9 Mile Rd is absolutely ridiculous!! It shows a real lack of understanding about planning, zoning, traffic counts, etc. When will the Escambia County Commission embrace the proper steps to handle this traffic appropriately?! Real thoughtful planning is needed on this issue and it’s about 10 years overdue!! No more building until this issue is resolved!!
I can guarantee two things, having worked under the ” commissioners” for the better part of a decade; 1) It will NOT be of any benefit to the taxpayers and 2) It will be be a black hole for money. Seems to me,I remember the ” commissioners” being told QUITE EXTENSIVELY that no commercial enterprises could be built in this property. I guess that falls under the rule of thumb that they used to ” trade” the bell property ( where navy fed is) for the piece of crap scrub land in God knows where. ” Commissioners” come & go, but the game remains the same. And how in the heck does escambia county trade Santa Rosa land for government ( fed) land in escambia???
Time for some discounts on homestead property taxes. Sounds fair for our money they tied up for years.
When a habitat house sells for 300k..there is something wrong with this..sonnyboy lane..
Just what we need a condo developer buying olf 8…great job commissioners.Now us taxpayers will be footing the bill for this total
Screw up!!!Pensacola is just turning into Atlanta…the apartment capitol of the United States
Please, please, please build the I-10 connection before building anything else out here.
What has happened to pensacola? Who has our county and people in mind? This place is literally a mad house now and now even more trees being ripped down for things we absolutely don’t need. And who’s buying g these ” affordable homes” here? Most people I know can’t afford to even think about looking at these homes. I moved back here last month from living in Pennsylvania for 5 yrs and I utterly hate this place now. Not the place I grew up in and becoming somewhere I don’t want to raise my children.
Obviously the county commissioners art to worried about the real future of pensacola… They always put the CART before the horse… INFRASTRUCTURE sure needs to be fixed first.. But they aren’t worried about that either. Because they don’t live in those areas.. Too bad more of them. Work voted out this past election.. And hopefully some more will go next election.
I was all for leaving it the way it is for another 10 years.
Town Center? Why? You are not going to compete with Downtown Pensacola. So unless you plan on incorporation you just created a useless bunch of vacant store fronts with apartments, to costly to rent, up above. The goal should have been to lure another Navy Federal with the promise of land based on job creation with good paying jobs. Now it will be filled with Buffalo Rock type garbage paying 17$ an hr. This is why this county will always fail. You never think outside the box and only the shiny thing that will turn out to be fools gold, the Town center being said fools gold!!!
Finally !!!
They just put the screws to everyone on Frank Reeder, all of that commercial traffic will be exiting onto Frank Reeder.
Before the first ground is broken!
FIX PINE FOREST TO 9 MILE ROAD!
EVEN if the county has to pay instead of the state
FIX IT TO 4 LANES AND A TURNING LANE(WHERE PEOPLE CANT DRIVE 4 BLOCKS IN IT)
Just think of the myriad of vape/CBD/kratom shops we’ll soon have, along with fast food franchises and nail salons. What a time to be alive!!!
Should have made a giant dog park out of it that would have been fun
I can’t wait to see a couple of new car washes come in.
Sad that this is all about the money. Pensacola is going to be a crowded bunch of nothing with a ton of flooding of hazardous material on the side. What part of OLF did people not think about contamination?
We can handle the traffic no problem!
$50 million to build a bunch of parking lots…. I think they wrote a song about this one time.