Pensacola is offering $570,000 to buy the former John Gibson School from the Escambia County School Board.
The Pensacola Community Redevelopment Agency voted 6-0 Monday to authorize $500,000 from the CRA’s American Rescue Act funds and another $185,000 from the Westside CRA to fund the purchase. As part of buying the property, the city will use the remaining $115,000 to pay for brokerage fees, closing costs and a full structural assessment of the building.
The price of the property is based on an appraisal done by Escambia County Public Schools, and it will be up to the School Board to decide whether to accept the offer.
The school building last housed the Community Action Program Committee’s Head Start program, but the group ceased its operations in that building late last year because it was too badly damaged from Hurricane Sally.
The John A. Gibson School opened in 1921 as a school for African Americans at the height of segregation in the South. It was named after Gibson, a well-known Black educator who immigrated to Pensacola from the Bahamas in 1872 and died in 1906 at 79 after a more than 25-year career in the city.