The Pensacola City Council, sitting as the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), discussed the selection of Bayou District Consulting, LLC, for the development advisory services on the redevelopment of the Baptist Hospital Legacy Campus. After more than 100 minutes of discussion, the council approved a 180-day contract on Monday.
“Promise Made Before”
Before the vote, District 7 Councilman Delarian Wiggins made an impassioned speech for community input, especially from the Black community that lives around the campus.
Wiggins drew a direct line from Hawkshaw to Tanyard to the Baptist Hospital Legacy Campus, warning the City Council that another generation of broken promises would perpetuate a cycle of displacement that has defined Pensacola’s Black community for decades.
The District 5 councilman made his points bluntly: this time, the community’s voice must be more than a box to check before developers move forward with predetermined plans.
- “This project is very important, not only for me, but for the people that came before me and the people that’s coming after me,” Wiggins said. “The Black community has been made promises for years.”
A Pattern of Displacement
Wiggins catalogued what he described as a systematic pattern of displacement across historically Black neighborhoods in Pensacola:…