Escambia County to borrow $25 million for John R. Jones Park upgrade

Escambia County will borrow $25 million to install artificial turf at John R Jones Park on Nine Mile Road.

The Escambia County Commission voted unanimously on May 1 to support the project and authorize county staff to move forward with obtaining a $25 million bank loan that will be repaid with tourism tax dollars.

The loan will be repaid with annual payments from the TDT fund of between $2.1 million and $3.3 million, depending on whether the county takes a 10-year or up to a 20-year loan.

Escambia County Parks Department Director Michael Rhodes previously told the Tourist Development Council that the project will more than pay for itself by attracting more visitors to Pensacola through sports tourism.

During Rhodes’ presentation to the TDC, he said data shows that sports organizers and families are trending toward spending more money on trips for sporting events.

The project will convert 18 baseball/softball fields and two multi-use fields that can host sports like football and soccer to artificial turf.

Upgrading the fields will allow the county to to attract travel youth sports tournaments in sports like baseball and lacrosse and compete with facilities in places like Panama City, Orange Beach, Alabama; and even Dothan, Alabama.

When Rhodes addressed the County Commission on May 1, he was still confident in the project returning dollars to the county.

“I’m pretty confident that Pensacola Beach and the tourism here is — no offense to Dothan, Alabama, and those towns — but I’m pretty sure we can compete very well against those,” Rhodes said.

Pensacola City Councilwoman Jennifer Brahier, who is also a member of the TDC, wrote an email to the County Commission on April 30 urging them do more research on the type of artificial turf that will be used arguing that it may pollute the area with the chemicals known as PFAS, which can build up in the people’s bloodstream. She noted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says may be harmful to people.

Commission Chairman Mike Kohler noted that some members of the City Council were opposed to the project; he didn’t specifically mention Brahier or PFAS pollution.

During the project discussion, Kohler voiced the strongest hesitancy about the project but said he’d like to support it even though it didn’t have a University of West Florida Haas Center study on its tourism impact. He referred to the TDC’s requirement for the study for the Gen. Daniel “Chappie” James Jr. Memorial Plaza project.

Commissioner Steven Barry said the project has the backing of several national youth sports organizations that have expressed interest in coming to Pensacola.

“We’re all familiar with folks, and especially if you had a reason to ask, you would know people that are going to Laurel, Mississippi, and other areas to play weekend baseball when they would love to be here,” Barry said.

The Jones Park project arose after another sports proposal for an indoor facility at Ashton Brosnaham Park faced scrutiny last year. Barry said that after the county pulled that project from consideration, conversations for alternatives led to the Jones Park project.

Barry said he still believes the Brosnaham Park project would’ve been a treamdous success, but that the Jones Park would also have an impact.

“It doesn’t matter now,” Barry said. “You don’t want perfect to be the enemy of good. I think this is a great project. But the idea for the indoor basketball and volleyball at Ashton Brosnaham was also a tremendous project.”

Jones Park is located in District 3, but until redistricting in 2022, it was in District 5, Barry’s district.

Kohler, who earlier in the meeting pushed for more funding for parks in his district, said it was hard to support the $25 million project to upgrade multi-use fields when his district didn’t even have one.

“It’s not in District 5 either, for what it’s worth,” Barry said, responding to Kohler.

District 3 Commissioner Lumon May laughed at the comment and said he wouldn’t get involved in the argument between the two, but said the project would add revenues to the tourist tax fund, which will benefit the whole county.

“It’s a lot of money – $25 million and I can’t even get $200,000,” Kohler said. “It’s sad, man, but I’m going to support it. “

Kohler said he was concerned that the debt would hurt the ability to bond out TDT revenues to update the Pensacola Bay Center.

Escambia County Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger said the tourism tax fund had the capacity to bond up to $100 million with current revenues. So, a $25 million loan would cap the Bay Center upgrades from that funding source to $75 million.

The previous cost estimates to upgrade the Bay Center range from $22 million to make bare minimum improvements that keep the 40-year-old facility operational, to major improvements, upwards of $100 million, that would modernize the arena and possibly expand it to include an event center and a second ice rink for practice.

“I just want to be up front that we all are aware of that, but I’m excited to support this project,” Hofberger said.