Pensacola City Council approved hiring Bayou District Consulting to begin planning what can be built on the old Baptist Hospital Campus, after initially rejecting the firm last year. Bayou District Consulting will oversee a community outreach effort to gather feedback on what residents who live in the neighborhoods around the campus want to see built. They will also conduct a feasibility study on what’s possible based on that feedback.
Bayou District Consulting’s one-year contract with the city costs $695,000 – nearly double what it would’ve paid under a previous contract the city rejected. However, that contract didn’t contain the level of detail for community engagement that the new contract does. The Pensacola City Council voted 6-1 to approve the contract, with Councilman Charles Bare voting against. Bare had voted to approve the contract earlier this month when the City Council met as the Community Redevelopment Agency board. At that previous CRA meeting, Councilwoman Teniadé Broughton voted against it, but supported it at the Oct. 22 meeting.