The $10 million, 55,000 square-foot building for the University of West Florida’s Center for Entrepreneurship proposed for Community Maritime Park joins a slew of new projects under construction or planned for downtown Pensacola, marking a building renaissance for the City of Five Flags.
The projects include a new downtown YMCA, Beck Property Company’s multi-use building at Community Maritime Park, a Holiday Inn Express proposed for 101 E. Main Street, the expansion of the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition on Alcaniz Street and Quint Studer’s apartment building at the old Pensacola News Journal site.
“Mayors would kill to have what we have going on right now. The culture has shifted so much in the last several years,” Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward said. “Real estate values on the water are now a million and a half dollars. This is cool stuff that’s going on. I’m just lucky to be a part of it.”