Pensacola is moving forward with construction on a third hangar for ST Engineering for $83.5 million but the funding for a fourth hangar is now an open question.
The $210 million project code-named “Project Titan” dates back to former Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward’s administration, which helped shepherd the completion of the first ST Engineering hangar in 2018. The goal was to build three more hangars with ST Engineering to bring the total number of jobs at the facility to 1,725 when fully operational.
Former Mayor Grover Robinson spent the early months of his administration working to secure the $210 million, mostly from state and federal grants. The second hangar opened at the beginning of 2023 just a few months into Mayor D.C. Reeves’ term.
It might be no surprise that six years after the original funding estimate of $210 million was put together, the funding was not enough in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the high inflation levels in 2021 and 2022 that accompanied it.
Figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that $210 million in 2018 is the equivalent of $261 million in January 2024.