This is your We want to be Oh yeah.
Sit down. You told me two years ago already. Okay. Scam County Redevelopment Agency regular meeting October 2nd 2025 9:00 a.m. Ernie Lee McGee government building first floor. Please turn your cell phone to vibrate silence or the off setting. The board of county commissioners allow any person speaking to speak regarding an item on the agenda.
The speaker is limited to two minutes unless otherwise determined by the chairman. Is there approval of publication? Yes. The CRA meeting was advertised in the Pensacola News Journal September 25th, 2025. Thank you. Are there any speakers for public forum? Uh not to my knowledge. Thank you. Technical and public service. Uh yes. Recommendation concerning community redevelopment agency minutes meeting minutes September 4th, 2025. Chair entertain a motion. I move the public service consent agenda. We got a motion second. Please vote. Passes unanimous. Thank you
so much. Budget and finance. I would just have one for your approval recommendation concerning residential improvement grant program funding and lean agreements. Mr. Chairman, I move the budget and finance A and B. I have a motion. Can I ask question? We we have a motion and a second discussion. Um, I notic that on this one is we only have one. Yes. Sorry about that. Uh, is usually we have quite a few more. What is it? Yes, we only have one that
now we'll have more on the next one because the end of the end of the budget year. No, it's because the end of budget. Okay. Thank you. That's what I was wondering. Thanks so much. So, what's our waiting list every for rehabs? Is there a waiting list for which what which should we have? You're talking about uh for reconstruction for new housing. What's Commissioner May? We have a slate of about 45 that we're going to be moving on this year. Okay, sounds good. Thank you, Les. So, we have a motion and a second. Please vote. That passes unanimous. Thank you so much.
Is there any other item for discussion? uh only uh for the November meeting, we will be presenting the results of the uh Brownsville sewer expansion. So, we'll have that for November. Thank you. And I did talk to director Long, Mr. Chairman, that we were concerned about all of the the septic to sewer and I think that ECUA has been a little delayed in getting information back. So, we look forward to the November meeting uh to get that information. Yes. If nothing else, we stand a journ. Thank you. All right, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner May. That's perfect.
Yeah. Uh, we're just shy of the official time. I'll just ask a question. Is there anything on the agenda? Um, I was going to do by default. Does anyone have anything they want to bring up for discussion this morning on the agenda? Commissioner Stroberg, you have anything? Okay. Yourself? Yes, sir. Okay, good. All right, we'll go ahead and call the committee of the whole uh to order. Uh, Commissioner Stroberger, if you do the pledge of allegiance. Yes, sir. Please join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and
to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Uh, Delena, has the meeting been properly advertised? Mr. Chairman, this sorry, this meeting was advertised in the Pensacola News Journal on September 25th, 2025 in the board's weekly meeting schedule. Okay. Thank you very much. So, out a little levity, I hadn't done this in a while, and I only got two more cows. I thought we'd officially put this meeting to order, the cow
bill. So, Commissioner May, you wanted to do a discussion today with economic development and I think Mr. Plate is going to do the presentation. Is that what we're planning on? Absolutely. Chris, do you mind sharing your thoughts? Or we can get a TDC from Darren. It doesn't matter. Is that an add-on? So, so can I just kind of lay the This is uh just informational and
um the director and I um Chris was and I was able to talk and Rick Brier on the board were able to talk. It's just kind of talking about where are we going with economic development? What are we doing with job creation? I mean whether we're looking at outline field 8, whether we're looking at Midtown Commerce Park or whether we looking up in Sentry at what we have on inventory. I know some things are confidential and you can't expose them, but we certainly need to talk about, you know, job creation and how we're creating jobs uh for the citizens that we represent. So, that's the gist and the gold of this quick conversation. Sure. Welcome. Thank you so much. Good morning,
everyone. Um, and it's uh appropriate was in one of our meetings with administrator Marino and uh said it's we need to come up here and at least do at least one or maybe two presentations to you guys a year just to keep you informed on what's going on. So, this is appropriate and good timing. Also, it's uh good timing in the sense that October is manufacturing month. So, it works out really well. Um, so just to give a little education, uh, for the people watching, um, I know
you guys know what we do, but just kind of want to make sure that some of the folks looking out there understand a little bit more about PEEDC in Florida West. And so this is our mission statement is basically to talk about the the associate our alliance exist to grow and diversify our economy uh of the county of the city and as well as the town of Century by fostering business retention and expansion first then recruitment and aligning those resources to create high-paying jobs. So from an economic development standpoint I think a lot of people view of us as the
uh community snake oil salesman. So we're sort of um the one out there that you know trying to make things happen. So we are typically a jack of all trades. We talk about we're three feet deep and a mile wide. So we're we know a little bit about everything but we know the experts to bring into those discussions. Um but then we are um sort of experts around tax incentives and those of things and product development. We do recruit um as well as do the retention and expansion of our businesses. um the uh retention and expansion of those existing industries are the first priority
of any successful economic development entity. And then you go and you recruit with strategy to fill in the gaps to build that sustainable economy. We do product development. So you can't sell from an empty wagon. You have to make sure that we have buildings and sites that are available. And so um that's critical. The uh we're marketing the com the community. So we're marketing outside typically to those um the business community abroad in larger markets and internationally.
We're also um in this situation with us because of Collab, we are also uh in charge of a lot of the incubation of smaller businesses within the community and then grow them up so that um they go from collab to being a traditional Florida West industry. And then problem solvings for industries. Odds are within the office between uh the experience that we have, we've probably seen most things. And so companies are very good at making their widget uh but they're not necessarily good at even adding a lean to, you know, going through some of that process. So we we're there
to help and guide them through those processes. Uh as well as, you know, county staff or city staff. Um we're the advocates um for businesses with inside of government. We don't advocate on the outside typically as more of a chamber role, but the on the inside working with staff to make sure that we can push things through uh particularly permits and things like that to make sure that the companies can get to hiring our folks and and investing as quickly as possible. We assist with workforce with that's not our um it's not what we should be taking the lead in. There's other
experts at that, but we should be at the table. And um so we were doing that with MC um with the Escarosa Career Source Escarosa and um and other entities. And then we're the only segment of government quasi in our case that generates new revenues for the city and the county. So if you look at most revenue streams are a tax or a fee on the existing people that are coming in. Uh but we're actually generating new monies into the county through advalorum tax base. So I have been
here for 10 months. So uh been fast and furious. Um if you recall my first meeting was the Marathon Olaf F8 uh meeting here in December. And so um came in drove 10 hours from Charlotte. got here, changed at the Airbnb and walked into I don't know how long that meeting was, but it was a was a good introduction. Um, but over the 10 months, it's really been broken up into three phases. Uh, so there was the discover phase, the sort of repair, the organization needed some fixing,
and then now we're moving into the development stage. So during the discovery for me it was learning the tools that Florida had or didn't have for recruiting economic development things that uh was not familiar with such as the triumph fund um as well as uh looking at what the state has and then obviously understanding local incentives um meeting with influential persons that's still ongoing. Uh it's been so busy trying to meet with everybody. It's been a difficult thing, but we're still we've marched down that list and we're still trying to uh meet with everyone. Understanding the
strengths and weaknesses of our organization. Uh that was a big one. And then assessing the competitiveness of the county uh for the type of economy that uh I was told that we want to build here. So in that repair stage, we started working with the budget and the financial situation. We had some issues with organizational structure um as well as there was a some naming discrepancies around the LLC. All that stuff has been worked on uh with a lot of help from others to make sure that got fixed. Um the other was transparency and trust I think from the previous. We want to make
sure that we're a lot more open. We can talk about things. Not everything is confidential. U but when we say it is, it's confidential. And so um but we want to be a lot more open with other projects that aren't on the confidential side. Um and then just education of what economic development is. I think there was you know from my perspective um a little bit of a um an education needed to be um given here you know given the past uh with some of the changes in the organization
and then now we're entering the developing stage. So, it's been exciting uh particularly with some of the actions we just recently had with the board, the PDC and the uh Florida West boards. So, we've reorganized our uh staff. So, the staff chart is a little bit different. Put some people with dedicated areas and we'll go over that in a second. We've built capacity adding a a new person. So, uh Ashley Saba has joined our team and so glad that she's here. Uh we're beginning the sort more of a rebranding and um trying to increase that visibility and uh
creating strategic partnerships and then focusing on the actions um and then the data and results. I'm a resultoriented person. So we want to make sure that we're showing you um everything we have is going to a purpose that'll have a result. the um so first we did the uh changing of the response responsibilities we moved um Denita Andrews over to be solely working with the existing industry her nurturing is she's the most nurturing person in our office so she it made sense to put her
there to take care of and handle so many problems that the existing industries have to make sure they are well taken care of then we added uh again Ashley as the new business development director um and So that has migrated uh some bandwidth to that side that's a little bit more important. So um now that that's a delineated effort rather than try DEA trying to do so much um it's uh I think you'll start to see the results of that in the next year.
So the rebranding and visibility we're trying to get out there as much as we can. We do most of the uh this work inhouse. So, I've got graphic art ability and some other stuff, you know, with the team that we have. So, uh it's been great to be able to produce and try to demonstrate um just a new brand for us out there, a new a new mark. So, with that, we have uh had our one investor event uh with a Mast's watch event earlier this year. We're getting ready at the end of this month, October 24th, to have our tailgate. So, we're going to do a another event over at the Hilton
downtown just to say thank you and appreciation to elected officials, investors, allies. Um, also within that, we've just determined the four legs of our stool in the work plan. So, we have aerospace, life science, maritime, and cyber AI. So, everything sort of revolves around recruitment and retention within that side. Uh we've also done strategic partnerships with the foiling week or organization and we're continuing to work on that as a pipeline of new projects into the county. Uh we've also added podcasts which will hopefully start this month. Um and
then we're doing other parts of the outreach is with our elected our government officials. So, um, Administrator Marino, we're starting our cadence of every two months to meet with the leadership of the county. Um, Mayor Reeves, we're now doing quarterly meetings with him as well as with the city ed team will be on a different cadence. But, um, very happy that now the window is kind of opened up for a lot of these meetings to share information. So, we're again focused on actions and data. Um, some of the things that
were not done that were sort of basic economic development like at Tech Park, we didn't have the geotech work done or if it was done, we couldn't find it. And so, we've gone through that. We've done an appraisal. So, we now know the price of the land. We've uh worked with Collab. We've challenged them to find new revenue streams. And so, they have done that. And so we're now using flex desks and trying to find other ways to generate revenue because collab has traditionally been a little bit of a drag on the organization. And so that is now becoming more profitable. And so with with the podcast studio, with the
other spaces that we have, we can definitely see a positive revenue stream coming out of Collab. And then you can look at the projects. We'll go a little bit further into that, but we're now marking and reporting out every month what projects are coming into the organization. So, speaking of reporting, let's go right into the um community information. So, we look at it. The most current information came out yesterday. Uh and that is for August. So, it's um unemployment rate for Escambia is 4.8. And you can see the other counties around us. Um
we had this same situation occur in the Carolinas where North Carolina remained fairly consistent. South Carolina would eb and flow with extremely low in u unemployment rates and they would pop back up and match up more with North Carolina. We see similar activity here where it seems like Alabama artificially is dropping compared to everybody else and then we'll pop back up. So it they're not following a trend. So we'll we'll watch that for you. But it does give us some information to look at. But among our peers, we we feel comfortable at 4.8. We know
that this is because of a bump in population. So we'll show you here. Every month we get the civilian labor force number and we compare that to the um unemployment rate. So July and August you typically have children coming back from college or from high school entering the workforce as well as teachers and other inputs that make that number jump. Then you'll start to see you can see in the cycle how it goes. And so in the as the summer ends, those people tend
to go away and go back to where they were and their other jobs. And then at Christmas time, it artificially drops as people are gobbled up for um the uh the holiday season and then they're put back into the labor. So this is where we are um with some of that. So the months that we watch are April and September. They typically have the least impact from outside uh influence. There are this is the labor force number 150 um 500 and that is the number that we
like to watch. We want to make sure that the labor force if we can keep it above 150 it's good for site selectors and other companies and you look at the MSA number it's over half million that's also a very good number for people. So feel comfortable knowing that jobs are available when they bring a company here. On the product development side, sorry
the first the highest priority part basically when I got here everyone said help us deal with tech part. Um we've done that in a sense of trying to get some data that again just the basics weren't there. Um the next phase for us now that we have the soil studies done so we know what limitations are on the site um is to and we know the price of the property. It did come in as an appraised just over nine acres at $6.1 million. Um and so we'll break that on a per acre basis as we start to get
rid of the property. Um, we're going to start to put down a um a master plan and a um sort of a design concept for the buildings there and then run that through the ARC at the city to make sure that we don't run into other hiccups with clients. We want to get rid of all the hurdles ahead of time, answer all those questions so that when we do get ready to break ground, we're ready to go. And so, um, we're also looking trying to find a a parking deck developer that can help provide parking on site, but then that can also assist in the Bay Center redevelopment. And we did we we've
talked about two projects. Those two projects are still active, but a third one has emerged. So, we're excited about that. It's more in the AI uh data side, which needs a lot of power, and we've checked with FPNL, and we do have the power available to support that project. The next is Central Commerce Park. Um, this was ready for phase two development. Uh, the old development look had all the sites are like 4 acres. That's not what we're recruiting for. Um, so we're recruiting for 50 to 100,000 square foot buildings. So, um, PEEDC just awarded that
design contract to master plan where the sewer is going to go and lay out the lots and grade the, you know, to how we can balance the sites out to make them larger. And so we have three projects um looking at that right now. So two existing um potential existing companies as well as a spec developer to put in buildings for us on there that would range from 30 to 100,000 square feet. The bluffs uh we're moving forward. We've stopped the design of the south extension just because we
don't know if there's going to be enough money. So, we're moving forward with the biddable documents on the roundabout only and then we'll move forward with the southern extension later, but we need to have something up there going. So, we've worked with BDI to make sure that we have the biddable documents that'll be coming this way. Uh, Midtown Industrial Park Lumin, Mr. May and I've talked about the potential there with you see in the blue it's behind the church is a a community asset that will help memorialize the community that was displaced and by the
pollution and everything that occurred there. And so with that and then just south of it, you can see in the small green is a potential we've worked with a developer said they may be interested in doing this but small flex space there for job creation and then with that we can then open up the northern piece uh the larger uh there because we already have some clients again interested in that property. So um we're excited to sort of hit this in a phased approach working with that community asset. Um, again, a lot of lot of details to come. That has not been shephered
uh through, but we did kind of um make sure that Commissioner May thought that was going to work um for that area. So, um we're excited about that potential project, too. And we've got some private folks that may be willing to help fund that um for us. And then Ellison is just it's only been 10 months, so I'm just kind of working down my list. And so Ellison, we're beginning to get out there, look at it, develop some conceptual ideas of how to revive that. One of the big things is what you
guys have done, which is the road. That's huge in showing that property. Um, now we've got to work on some of the structures to get them. You know, a code of paint will do a lot. So, we'll start to work through that with Ellison. Uh, the only other with Olaf 8, we have met with um the team, the developer, and so that's exciting what we can potentially do there. But again, more to come from them. If you look at the business retention activities, u Denita has been out there and so hitting a bunch of the companies and trying to find if they've got projects,
if they got problems, what can we do to help solve them and make their life easier and so they can continue to grow here and hire our people. So, we've had just in this fiscal year where it just concluded, we've had 57 touches. That's individual touches with individual companies, but they may have multiple times she's been hitting those companies. So, it's more than just 57 when you look at it because they do once you start opening that door, they really like the help. And then when you look at projects coming in, last year we were at 27
uh jobs and so this year we're at 32 uh that we just concluded. So, we're looking to grow that. Now, we want to have metrics that are around 40 48. So, at least four per month that we can bring in and then have that grow. So, was 26 in the previous year, 32 this year. Um, and again, we're looking at 48 or more uh for this new fiscal year that we're just entering. So, if you look at the activity, the pipeline, the active pipeline right now is 32 projects. We have
in the gray the suspects which are companies that are looking for information. You know, they're considering a lot of places, a lot of states, a lot of communities. Then as they refine their list, they come down to what we call prospects and that's where the four is. And as you work down that, they become projects. So once you know we're getting shortlisted and then at the 18 number, that's ones that we know that we're shortlisted. We're one of the final communities and so we have a good chance of winning those. a better chance than what we have if it's in the gray or
the green. So, but projects do fall out of that funnel. So, we always are trying to fill the top. Uh it instead of looking like an hourglass the way it looks now, it should be more of a funnel. So, we need to get the the top filled up a little bit more. Um so, as we conclude the year, the numbers for us were five announced projects that generated 280 jobs, uh well above the average. And then those had a collective investment of $88 million. So the advalorum tax on that
alone is probably right in the 600,000 range to the county. A new advalorum property tax. Since 2014, there's been a lot of projects come through to the organization, a lot of success. And if you look at it, 68 projects, nearly a billion invested invested, nearly 9,000 jobs uh created and just over half a billion in wages to the community.
When you look at that, the money given by LOST money to the organization and the advalorum tax returned to the county counting depreciation. So this is the most conservative return on investment we can calculate. So for every dollar the county gets back $444 since 2014. On an annualized basis it's 1847. So there's not much that you can invest in that would generate that return for the community. I wish my 401k did that.
So, as we go forward, some of the goals now are to get um complete and get ARC approval for the building concepts at Tech Park and move forward hopefully within this year, get an LOI or more on the first building to go in. The um one is to design the community asset at Midtown and then look to sell an option for site at the northern piece there. Excuse me. move forward with biddable plans at Central Commerce Park,
particularly using triumph dollars to do that based on the projects that we have. So, that should come in as a zero cost hopefully to the county or to any anyone to develop that site. Um, sell and option the first two sites and then work with that developer to create some spec property. Um, start construction at the roundabout at the bluffs and get control. That's the next thing that's been missing. Uh I don't know why it wasn't done but that we need to have control of the properties that we've identified at the Bluffs area so that we can then dictate our our future there and then um meet with every existing
industry over the next year and create at least 48 projects into the pipeline. The um other things that we're doing is uh we started yesterday was a revamp of our Salesforce so that again we can do much more robust reporting back to you on pretty much anything that you would request. Uh re we're going to overhaul three of our websites again start the podcast. We're going to look and see we've had some discussions with Nicole at HOS but try to get a land value
to cost to serve analysis done for the county. It's something that we've done is pretty pretty interesting data to look at so as can inform you as you go forward with uh protecting some commercial industrial land uh to realize how much that pays for versus residential and other uses. And then the most important thing that we really need to get is a wage survey. So, we're going to be working with our existing industry so that we can truly determine the manufacturing wages, the benefits, training needs, you know, what is the reason for turnover, but it's also going to
help us identify the location of our labor pool and we'll know where we're pulling. So, if someone is coming from Baldwin County, we'll know that we'll start to see the patterns and how big that labor pool is. And that helps then to sell the community. uh because it's not just Eskeemia County, it's the whole labor pool that we're we're pitching. And that was sort of it and kind of prepped you hopefully for some some questions. Mr. Chairman, if you don't mind, Chris, you mentioned it being manufacturers month. That reminded me
we we had a pretty active manufacturers council for some period of time, but we've had some leadership changes at a number of the plants and mills. Is that is that organization still I mean it's not one of your organizations but are they still healthy? Are they active and meeting? From what I understand, it got folded into a larger group, those sort of multi-state. And so because of that, I think we are actually I appreciate you bringing that up because we are looking to create maybe a local version of that of a manufacturers's leadership group because they had I mean I went to several of their
meetings and they had eight or 10, you know, at these that were pretty active from, you know, local large employers and I think they were meeting quarterly at that time and it seemed I would presume the slice the meetings the meetings that I attended were you know representative slice of the work that they were doing and it seemed like there was quite a bit of engagement you know among uh among at least the leadership at the at those uh employers but yeah um we've talked about it at a staff level Denita's giving me sort of the history there and we definitely need to bring that back
Chris thanks for the presentation and thanks for being here I I guess A couple questions um in terms of the central commerce park, the tech park, the bluffs, Midtown. I guess two questions for me. What type of jobs are there? Light manufacturing, manufacturing professional or jobs are we having? Um how many jobs are we going to create? And what's our projected timeline? Let me get the crystal ball. Well, the uh Brian's coming in. He may be able to give me the answers. Yeah, it um you know I think if we can generate 300 jobs a year of new jobs that are in the high quality
that's a good start for us considering you got to remember there was basically a big reset button in January. So we're building capacity we're building um materials that weren't there. So you know it's going to take some time to be in the full um throws of you know big successful economic development. you're going to see more investment than you will job creation just because manufacturing is becoming more automated. So, we got to keep having things come into the pipeline and then working with our existing industries to generate that that new tax. So,
when you say those 300 jobs, you're saying 2026, 2027, when do you think those jobs will start hitting? Is this a three year, 5 year, 10 year? I mean, when are these jobs going? It's so for every project you when we announce the project it takes probably 12 to 18 months if it's not an existing industry if it's a new company because they have to build the structure if there's not one available there's not a lot of available buildings in the county. Um so we have like project Britain hopefully we'll announce um before the end of the year that's 100 jobs with that project. Um,
so and the only reason I ask Chris is because I and I've said this and you're new that if we don't align our economic development strategies and goals with our educational pipeline of training, I mean, we will continue to create jobs where we have to bring people outside the area and that results in uh pes of poverty still existing because we cannot create jobs because we're not producing the qualified uh applicants to get those jobs. And so we are investing, you know,
in in in human capital of other communities if we are not aligned with our educational systems and our training system for the jobs that we're going to go. So I mean, as a county, I'm just seeing, you know, when are those jobs coming, how are they coming, and how are we training to make sure uh that quite frankly, the citizens that we all represent have an opportunity for those jobs. the the one thing I think the wage survey will definitely demonstrate where the people are are working. So I think you'll start to see that we're the entire county is is within that active labor
pool. Uh training resources at PSC and UWF and even uh Pensacola Christian all are effective. We need I need to get more engaged with the local school system. Again, it's just been time and effort. And I and I say that because I mean, we we invested a substantial amount of money in some of our um institutions. I don't want to call any names, any companies, but we couldn't find local. So, we had to not we had to go outside the area to supply that workforce. And so, which
is unfortunate uh when I see young people walking the streets every day and they don't have jobs, but we go outside this area to recruit other people to new jobs when we still have people living in poverty here. Yeah. And so, and I'm just trying to see, you know, how do we help, and this is no fanger, you've just been here. How do we help change that narrative or that platform in which we can make sure that our school system is training people for the jobs that we have coming? I think there needs to be more awareness within the communities of the jobs that
are here and then the training opportunity. So the new AMP school that'll be coming at um PSC is going to be huge. Obviously what George Stone does is amazing. So I think there's a lot of things that people just don't even know about. And so there's some of that education that we need to do too. Um and maybe I'm again looking at the local uh high schools and stuff. I'm sure there's resources there. I just have not had my chance to to learn that yet. That'll be the next phase is working with the superintendent and hopefully understanding what they have in their mies and everything else that'll align up. But it's it's it's a chessboard. You know,
it's going to take some time and soon as we get it positioned, it's going to take off. So, we just have to have some time and as much as I don't like Alabama, I'll say, you know, Mr. Mr. Sabins, you know, trust the process. We're in the we're in the beginning of the process. Well, well, thanks, Chris. I mean, in the last three directors of of economic development, I've simply said, you know, just bring me to 13 jobs that are in zip codes that I represent and without names, and that would be a good start. And so, after 13 years, it's difficult for me to get those answers,
but uh that's what I mean. Yeah. I mean it it's hard to tell some uh 18 19 year old that you know we're 24 months 36 months and then expect for them to uh retain uh residency uh in your county or in your district when I'm telling them it's three years with a possibility of getting a job. And so I mean I'd really like to tie down real prospects with real training and that gives real hope. So uh that that's the gist of my goal. So thank you for being I hear you. We'll be working. There are
some other strategies, but we can talk about that offline. Commissioner Stroberger, do you have a Chris question? So, me and uh Steve get this brief from you, you know, six times a year. So, nothing changed. I'm glad. I mean, it's the same brief that we had, right? Um and it's a good brief. Thank you. I was happy to see Foiling Week, the Foing Week logo on there. We talked a little bit about that yesterday. just a little bit about it. Y uh and I think you recognize that bowling
week isn't just a sporting event, a big sporting event, not just for Pensacola, but for for Italy and anywhere else that they do it. Um I think it's an economic development tool, too, that's going to bring jobs, high-paying jobs, manufacturers here, too. That's why I think it's important. It's a tourism multiplier. It's a global branding opportunity for Pensacola and Escambia County. Scott over. You know Scott? Scott's the founder and co-owner of Foiling Week. He shared a
screenshot with me um after Foiling Week of a a friend and acquaintance of his that was watching Pensacola Foiling Week in Creek in a bar in Creek, Greece. I think that's remarkable. That's one instance that there's probably lots of them like that. Um 4% is considered full employment, right? Generally. Yeah. Between four and six is Yeah. The other thing I was thinking is that foiling week, you know, just like New York Fleet Week, they have an office set up for it to get ready for
foiling week every year. I'm sorry, to get ready for uh New York Fleet Week every year. That's what I envision happening here. Foiling week with all the events that are happening, you know, uh in the fall, whatever. We ramp up for it. We get started. I mean, that's what Scott and Luca would like to do, I think, is they want to get an early start because the start they had last year, which was a great success, I think, um would have been better even with a with a uh a start that happened earlier. Um any any more thoughts about that? Yeah, we're continuing to engage because
we have theou with foiling weeks group. So, um hopefully in November we'll be at um an event in Amsterdam. So Ashley and I'll be going to that to um with Luca and Scott to help line that up. Florida is also going to be there. So it'll help in that sense of Florida Commerce. So we're we're going to continue to take advantage of that that relationship and a pipeline to industries that we would not have access to without Scott and Luca. And and Florida has um an economic uh economic
ties to Italy, too. Yes, we just opened an office. Yes. Thank you. Commissioner Barry, do you have any or do you have your light on or you want to One quick question. He mentioned the A&P school opening. How how are things at the airport? The airport here Yeah. with the with everything ST the the whole project. How how are how are things coming with that? I believe it's going really well. We just had um Project Britain went there to go visit is to see you know the labor force but also as a potential customer. So they seem to be doing very well from that. Yeah. I mean they they
are they fixed some of the the employment issues and they seem to be hitting their metrics now. Yes. Yes. Okay. Uh Chris Oh, Commissioner Hudson, did you have another question? Yeah, Chris and and I I guess are we going after high-tech jobs, manufacturing jobs? I mean, what's our targeted industry? I mean, what's Scammy kind of be going to be known for? Yeah. So, aerospace, marine, life science, and cyber. So if you look more in the city, it's going to be more your your laboratory,
you know, clinical work, um more of the cyber. As you start to go out is where we're going to get into the manufacturing pieces. And so where they have average W2s of 60 to $80,000. Um white coat manufacturing for the life science can be anywhere in the county. Um, but the aerospace and the marine will basically be in the middle of the county is where you would see that because it's going to want access to the I 10 to be able to get to the who they're supplying to whether that's
um Airbus, Boeing and Charleston. So, what are we what are we doing to prepare with the changes that are happening in Mobile with Airbus? Are we expecting a lot of opportunities for us because of that? The some of the property at Olaf F8 as well as looking at new properties and then like central commerce will be one of those locations as well as potentially Midtown where we can put some of those that supply chain when you start adding the EMP schools. So again, it's that it's that chess piece, right? So you have to keep adding some of these pieces together that we have not had that is
going to provide that workforce that they will see to want to be here. So we're kind of I mean I a couple question I guess we are we going after the international companies I know with tears people are trying to bring things you know within the United States. So with these other international compan companies are we recruiting those companies to come into Escambia. Yeah Project Britain it's not a great code name is from the UK. Um they their goal is to hopefully move a headquarters from England to here. um mainly because of some of the crazy legislation that's been passed in
England as well as the tariffs. So the tariffs, we saw this in the first Trump administration back in the Carolinas that the foreign direct investment or what we call FDI was significantly jumped because of tariffs. So tariffs are a good it's not a great policy, but it's a good lever and good and creates great leverage to get some of these companies to come into the US. So I think that right now it's it's working because we're seeing a lot more international since the tariffs have come into place and particularly now they've been codified so you know that England's
10% EU's 15%. They know what that is they they need to they still need to come. So that on top of us administrating administering the FTZ and again allows us to really work with foreign companies to bring product in utilize that FTZ so they can kit projects together then sell it back into the US without having extreme duty on every piece that's that they make that they it's cheaper to sell one unit like a kit versus paying tax on every piece that's coming in. So you only pay tax on the kit
at the end. So, it's cheaper and so that's where the FTZ provides us another advantage for foreign. Thank you. Thank you for Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Chris. Go ahead, Commission. I didn't see your light. Just came. I just put it on. Okay. Um, so I know talking to some of the other counties, um, there's mixed feelings whether you're better off building the facility and then trying to move someone into that facility or if you're better having shovel ready sites and then building to suit. What has been your experience with the people who are looking to move to Escambia County? Yeah, I think we need to do both. Okay. Uh I think the speculative adds opportunity
for those companies that need to move quick. A lot of the times companies do not plan very well and all of a sudden they get a new order, a new series of orders. They are out of capacity. They need to move quick whether that's existing or new companies. So you need to have some inventory of product that they can that's more to move in ready. But for the long-term strategy, those bigger companies that are going to come in, you know, like a Navy, not like a Navy Fed, Navy Fed's a, you know, a unicorn project, but a larger project that has will make a dent and really set,
you know, the direction of the county forward. You have to have land for those projects. So, it's a combination of both. I've ran a spec building program. A lot of times a building will bring a company in. They don't take that building, but they take the site next door to it. So it'll it's a good magnet to draw people in. So I I really believe you need to have not a tremendous, you know, where it's all buildings. You need to have a balance, but I think that's smaller. If we have a small inventory of good buildings that we that we keep replenishing, that's a that's a good target,
but we have to have the dirt. Do we currently have the funding to build those buildings or is that something that we're going to have to look at in the future? We'd have to look at and work with partners. you know, the private sector can really help us like in that one example that we have the private developer looking to come from Alabama to develop those here. Um, we'd love to do that with locals. Um, but I think most of the product that has been built here local is more smaller and flex. We need to get them to start thinking bigger. Chris, I got a few questions and first one I want to just get out on the table. You know, we're waiting for the study for the Bay Center.
So, what I'm hearing, the tech park is probably not going to be able to be used as part of that project. You have pretty hard deals there is what I'm hearing. Yes. Okay. Well, that's good to know because that was one of the things the city was looking at and I think you know that. So, I think it's important to get that out there just so we know that. I do think and I'm sorry to interrupt, but I do the parking deck component of that can be an asset for the Yeah. And I know I know the grand there's a tentative thing going on there right now. So, that's good news, but we'll see where we go that. I do want to go back to something. Go back to your slide on the excuse me prospective
activity. I have a question here. So one more. Yeah. Right here. Okay. So these these 280 jobs is this from 2014 till now? No. So how how long when what is that number from? 2014 to now is about 9,000. So what what is these numbers? The 200. This is from October 1st of 04. Okay. So, I did a quick math. These jobs that that would be about $314,000 per job. I'm assuming that includes
infrastructure, equipment. What's the mean salary for the job for those jobs? They're going to be in the 50 to 60 range. Okay. It Do you guys have a goal for mean salary? That wasn't in the brief like what you're fighting for. Yeah, we always try to be at or above the average of the county. Okay. Which is about 50. I like that because Yeah, I think we need to work on that. Yeah. Now again, there are some people and this is just reality that their skill sets aren't going to be I get it. You know, so you we recruit for all people. We want to make sure there's nobody on DSS. No,
any job's a good job. I understand that. But so we try to we try to make sure there's a good mix, but the the weight of those projects are going to be in the higher end. Okay. I have a separate question, and this is I I don't know if you know this or not. The federal government is looking at public private partnerships on installations that are going away. Are you working with the base or anyone around here? I know what you're doing on Corey, but I'm talking about potentially Softly or Bronson Field or anything like that. The we they're looking to dispose of some property or
find like you said the public private. We were part of those meetings. I would like to target a portion of Bronson. I think that it's got some we wouldn't touch the the recreational component, right? But where the old airfield is is hard pack flat. So you Okay. I just want to make sure you're aware of that because I've been talking to the BCO about that and had some ideas. I just want to make sure you guys were looking at those as potential options. That group kind of at least on the phone or on the Zoom call they were pushing for more residential that that well that I think that was
in the P. You're talking out of Bronson. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I I don't know where they're going to go with that. I think that's they may have moved on from that. And I don't think that's going to be the primary development. I think the other site maybe, but we'll see. We're going to ADC here at the end of the month and that's a big thing across I guess now the Department of War for these consolidations, which I don't like because that's a lot of safe income coming into our area. I have a I don't know. I have a serious question for you. When you have 150,000 employed people adding four jobs a month, is that is that really realistic or four jobs? Four projects.
Four projects with four. But you said 48 jobs, right? No, sorry. No, about 300 jobs for the year. Okay. But we want four projects a month or 48 coming into that top of that funnel. So, where did that metric come from? I don't I don't know if it's a good metric, a bad metric. I don't even know. It's basically we're trying to escalate that number. You know, my goal hopefully at some point we'll we'll get to seven or eight a month. Okay. So, right now we only had 32 for the year. I don't want to put a number that I can't achieve. I understand. And I just was wondering if that was a
normal We are going to be pushing our goals every year and trying to to migrate that population. Did you come up with that goal or is there a business uh uh standard for that goal based on population? No, it's just kind of looking at the activity that we have what we think we can generate. It's like okay let's get to four projects a month that PDC. Yeah. And then we run it through the board. So, I was just wondering if there was actual study that said this is is this is what we should shoot for and then IGSA's Olaf F8, you brought up that and you're working with them. I met with Chad a
couple weeks ago. I think they're going to have to come back to the board for some revisions. I don't know where our board who's been talking to them. How do you feel that project's coming together? I think we got just the first glimpse probably what you saw of what they're talking about. U it's a fascinating project. You know, we want to we need to make sure that we have enough capacity to generate the jobs that would help create enough Triumph dollars to bring the infrastructure not only into the park itself, but also to populate all the roads and and infrastructure within the
the light industrial portion of Yeah, I'm paying attention that because there's some some changes from what the board agreed to, but I'm interested to see where we go. Commissioner Barry. Yeah, Mike, you mentioned stuff to do with Bronson and Softly. So, is the redevelopment of Softly back on the table? Is that what you're No, I I don't know how much I want to say about this. There was I got to I want to work with him on a project. Just for reference, 15 years ago, there was a master plan done of softly when I was on PDC before I was a commissioner. And it got pretty far along
the process and then it just this was I guess it would have been 0708 and then, you know, things fell and it just didn't nothing came to fruition. But there was there was buyin at that time for uh you know for a large redevelopment of Softly. You haven't heard that's I can I can tell you what the CO told me this last week. So, I was talking about several different things, but they have about 800 acres out there, 300 of its solar farm. In 26, they're going to basically I if I obviously
get the funding, they're going to get rid of a lot of the stuff out there and then there's potential for some growth out there, but they want to do it through a leasing. So, they get back, you know, public private partnerships. So, you know, that's up to discussion if a business would want to lease versus own the property. And I don't know, we could we could work that out, I think, eventually, but that's what I've been told. Um, that's what they wanted to do. Business is a lease. I mean, it just depends on the terms. I mean, right. No, I Yeah, we're not even relatively close to anything like that yet, but that's what I was told. And so, I do think there's some potential there
for the county down the road, maybe. I I hadn't heard that. That's good. Commissioner Stroberger, I just want to ask why why are we looking at jobs between Did you say 50 to 60 thousand? Yeah. Um, is that is that kind of like starting industrial beginning salaries? It depends on so blue collar is probably 19 to 24 an hour type of job, but you're going to when you look at the whole,
you know, not necessarily the the top management, but you look at the whole group, you're going to average up there. So, when you start adding engineers, when you start looking at, you know, leadership supervisors, they're going to be making decent money. and those skills is, you know, welders. Welders $100,000 job. Yeah. So, when you start looking at that, it pushes that average up. Yeah. Good. Because I know in aerospace they they pay a lot better than 50 60,000, right? You walk in the door, you're making more money, right? But we got to account for I know it depends on the region. Is that what makes it more attractive to be here? Is that what we're I'm sorry. Is that
what makes it more attractive to be here to bring to bring manufacturers or or those highpaying jobs down here? that we kind of start out, you know, less than say Seattle area. Yeah. Well, yes, you'd be definitely lower than Seattle. Um, but it would be um and that's mainly because of unionization up there. The um what you would have that's again the average, you know, if we can get higher, we're always wanting it to be higher. So, you may get a Collins or an RTX come
in and they're going to pay 80 90,000 on average, but then you may have another group that's doing um just a lower-end MRO, they're probably going to be paying 50 60,000 on average. But it's again, it's on average that you're looking there. And there's going to be as people start, they're not going to start at the top range. You know, you're 21. You're going to have to work your way up. I just don't want us to start out as the the China of manufacturing here and Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. No. We'll they'll be paying market rate within, you know,
a multi-state area. Yeah. So, it's not it's not we're definitely not lowballing this community by any means. Got something against Chinese food there. Chris Strober Commission. I worked in a Chinese restaurant. Okay. Commissioner Mayor. So Chris, so in the last 12 months, what's been the average wage of the jobs that you've created in the last 12 months? And I'm out of those are going to be in that like 55 to 60 range. So we've created 300 360 jobs at the average wage of about
55 to 60 in the last 12 months. Mhm. Okay. And I guess final question, it's like 13 13 million or so of new monies rolling in the community. And that equates to 60,000 or 50,000 for 300 plus jobs. So yeah, if you do the 300 at the 50 60,000 or higher, that number gets big, you know, which you see rolling around in the community. So and were those more manufacturing jobs or more administrative professional jobs? It's been a mix, but I think more manufacturing. Wow. So, you know,
the GE is manufacturing. National Energy is more office. Tippets is going to be manufacturing. Um, Alkalast is Yeah, they're manufacturing jobs for the most part. So, I know the city has their own economic in-house economic development team. Are we working at all uh in Midtown Commerce Park on an inland port or anything at at Midtown with um with the city? um com the councilwoman uh Allison Patton helped set up a meeting um between Erica and myself to kind of talk about that because we
had not heard we'd heard rumors but we hadn't heard any details. So there's no movement with that right now as far as I don't know the other than we've had that first discussion to hear what they were thinking about doing but I've not been engaged in that project at all. So, I mean, just a little history and long before any of us got on the board, I I was involved in in uh with Commissioner Jr. and Margaret Williams. Uh obviously, that's the third largest relocation in the United States of America. But there were a lot of promises on jobs,
redevelopment, recreation for that neighborhood. And so whatever happens there, I mean, there was a long-term commitment to that community that I hope that still is part of the focus of any development that we do as as you you and I kind of talked about is like let's let's memorialize sort of what happened there with a community asset and then build those jobs from there. So, I think we want to make sure that they don't think that we've forgotten as we build industrial if we don't do something to sort of memorialize that, have a place for family reunions and other things
they can come back to. Well, thanks. Well, I appreciate everything. I mean, I guess Wes, who's our point of contact as a staff person that works with economic development in Florida West? Is that just you or is there someone designated to work with them on economic development? I'm sorry, say that one more time. Who is our who I'm sorry, I apologize. Who is the point of contact staff person for economic development that works at Florida West? Is it just directly with you or is there specific myself and Allison? Okay. All right. Thanks. I just want to make a comment. This isn't against you, Chris, but if you went to the side, the results since 2014, and I beat this
drum on a regular, go down a couple more and it and this is really important to me. It should be important to everyone on the board. your your last bullet. Since 2014, you've put in a little over half a billion in new annual wages, and that's great. We have a community with the Do Department of War and the base that brings 6.6 billion into the economy. We need a full force assault to keep every job, right? It's 47% of our co our, you know, our county. We have one organization,
the Northwest Florida Defense Coalition, that combined fights for about $200,000 to save the bases. 6.6 billion, 60,000 students come through, 40,000 organic staff. If we lose any of that, your job is going to get really difficult. Right. Right. So, I just want people understand the math what we're talking about. This is this is these numbers are great what you're doing, but we have an a manufacturing company out on NES Pensacola, right, that's feeding this economy and that,
you know, we love uh obviously Mama. She's great. Um very fortunate to have her and she we've talked with her several times. Um don't look at this. This is the raw number. We're trying to give you the most conservative number possible. That number turns in the community four times on average. So you know we're that's just the salary the person's getting but when they spend it at the Publix or hairdresser that economic impact P. So that this number is just to the county in your coffers for
what you provide to us as funding. So that's for every dollar we get you're getting that back. Commission your mic. I didn't have the mic on. apologize. So, and and I appreciate what you're saying, these defense jobs, these manufacturing jobs, but one of the things that we really have to focus on as well is the retention, recruitment, and promotion of our small businesses as well. Oh, yeah. And how do we measure those? And so, Chris, I mean, that's of interest to me. I mean, how are we building up our small businesses? How are we retaining them? And how are we increasing
their capacity? Because I mean, that's you're right. I mean, we want the big wins. I mean, but the washroom is the one that keeps people working. need these small businesses to stay afloat, too, because most of us up here are small business people. Did you say the washroom? You did. We are small businesses. It's true. There's a small business in my district. She pays into the CRA. Yes. Thank you. And repainted the building. She painted the building and she cut the grass. Yeah. So, without a facade grant. The the short answer to that is we're not really outside of Collab,
we're really not working that much with smaller business just because we don't have the bandwidth. So we are there's a lot what does it take to get the bandwidth I mean I mean it's just bodies I mean so we have the small business you know training center we have there's so many other assets here that are directly related with small business we're assisting but we're not sort of the point so we're the tip of the spear when it comes to this stuff um but for the small business or for workforce we're on the dis you know but we're not the chairman and and and I understand and obviously I see Brian wire I mean we have the minority chamber that probably has more focus on
on small businesses. I'd love to see how they're working with you on small businesses, but for me, I represent the small business community more than I represent the big manufacturing community. So, I mean, I'd love to see a focus on that. Rather, it's working with, you know, Brian in his chamber or Todd in his chamber. I mean, I think it's if they can create if someone could create five jobs in Brownsville, that would be a win for me. If someone created five jobs in Montlair, that would be a win for me. I mean, more than, you know, always shooting. I mean, we obviously want to be with what the chairman is saying, but that changes the neighborhood uh
in North Mars Court if we can create five jobs for a small business, whether it's, you know, the I don't know whether it's the gutter company or whether it's a small contractor or whether it's the local restaurant. I mean, that's huge when you can create jobs where people can walk to in in our pockets of poverty, right? And that's what I think we're trying to do a little bit with um that that smaller section beside the community asset at Midtown would be some of the smaller provide a place for smaller businesses to develop. Um we're also we just met with the CRA team to understand a
little bit more about that. That was another asset that I we're doing an incubator in Brownsville for small business. We talked about that and maybe seeing how that could work with collab and so that was a really interesting conversation with that team. So the CRA for me was brand new too. said, "I've been learning and trying to learn that and they were extremely helpful and it may be going away." But yeah, I'm sorry. I say it may be going away before you learn it, but we'll see. Talk to your legislators. Yeah, you might. Yeah, your board might want to. Well, assuming it's there,
you know, there was a lot of good banter back and forth of what possibilities in each one of the CRA districts. So, Mr. Chairman, thank you. I I I do I mean and it really the conversation went somewhere and morphed into something else. But I I will say that the small businesses are the bedrock of America, bedrock of Florida and I we have to make a focus on small businesses in Escambia County if we're going to be a solid economic foundation. Also, as we bring in the bigger companies, they will depend on those smaller companies as part of the supply chain. So there's going to be more and more opportunities for the smaller businesses to grow and and prosper with some of the
bigger companies we're bringing to. So it's all related. It's all connected. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. John. Okay. I think Commissioner Hoffber has another comment or question. So, I know that we also find Career Source Escar Roza to some degree. I think we just um voted on that a few meetings ago. Who actually owns workforce development in the community? Is that Career Source Escar Roza? They would typically be the the point person. And then training obviously would go with PSC or UWF, you know, this but to sort of be the tip of the spear. I think it's Marcus' team on that piece.
And then we're all feeding information and talking together like this is what we're recruiting, this is what the skill sets that we're being told they need and then working within the schools to make sure that they're providing that training. So um that's where typically we have run it through um that group or the community college level. It's one of those two typically in a community that are your sort of your tip of the spear on workforce. Commissioner May, would you be interested in having Career Source and maybe the school board come to Cal and we can talk about workforce development and how we align it all together and put them all in
a room at the same time. School board career and then Yes, I think that' be great. Thank you. Thank you. You got the next one, so you can call it. I'm very supportive. Commissioner May, are you done? Are you I'm done. Yes, sir. Um Chris, thank you for coming today. I thought that was very useful for all of us to, you know, see what you're doing, the numbers, division. Um, I just want to say thank you and to the team and we it's important that all of us understand the vision of what we're doing in the county. So, very good brief today. And Chris,
I want to say thank you to you and I see many of your board members, Rick and all those guys. Dave, thank I saw Bruce walk in. So, thank you. Thank you so much for the support. And I I mean, it certainly was not anything to bring question. Uh, but when we're in town meetings, people don't understand the metrics. They don't understand the numbers. They don't understand the ROIs and the percentages. What they do understand is that I get their child a job. Yeah. And that's the reality of what happens when we're out representing you. And so at the end of the day, this is all great, but you know, when we put people on jobs is what citizens expect. So that's the goal. Yes,
sir. And again, um, come October 31st, I close on a house. So this is really important to me, too, to make sure the community is strong. So that's good. Is that your last word? You're having this for your house warming. Yes. What day is it? No. No. The first day. Well, Mr. Chairman, I I I was going to make a motion and bring Rick Brier up to make this motion, but I guess Rick, I'll won't make it today. So, that's fine. We'll we'll save that for the next meeting when Ashley brings it to the committee of the hall. Okay. Thank you. Thank you again, uh, board. That concludes our cow today. We'll meet at 4:30 for public forum. Thank you all.