Escambia County has made three major offers for the more than 540-acre property known as Navy Outlying Field 8 in Beulah, or OLF 8. Commissioners will hear presentations from the three developers offering to purchase the property during the Board’s Committee of the Whole meeting, Thursday. morning.
The county currently has three offers to consider for all 540 acres. Beulah Town Center LLC is offering $42.5 million for the property, Beulah Ranch LLC is offering to buy it for $30 million, and Tri-W Development LLC is offering $40 million for an option to purchase the property.
The property has been for sale for about two years and the county has received more than a dozen bids for all or part of the property. Escambia board chairman Mike Kohler is ready to move forward with a developer. While he sees pros and cons with each bid, he says they are all “good” and wants to have a public discussion about the proposal with the goal of getting the board to make a quick decision.
“I’m not going to get into a bidding war. These guys wouldn’t keep coming back to the world unless they started making a lot of money there,” Kohler said. “We want to get a good deal, but I think it’s time to move away from that. If we don’t move on, we’ll never get anything done. It’s time to move on from that.”
Offer from Beulah city center
Beulah Town Center LLC has made several offers to the county over the past year for all or part of OLF 8. Developer Fred Hemmer says that, like previous offers, this latest $42.5 million offer is contingent on the property’s repurposing by Escambia County, saying the current zoning is problematic for any developer trying to follow the DPZ Master Plan for the area.
The DPZ Masterplan includes a mix of commercial and residential development and a city center with amenities within walking distance such as shops, restaurants and other facilities. When the province approved the plan, a zoning plan was drawn up for it.
Hemmer says if the county accepts Beulah Town Center’s offer, he and his partners will need six months to do their due diligence in assessing the property and developing a site plan that, barring any unforeseen issues, would determine whether they can move forward with the deal. .
What Beulah Town Center offers: Beulah Town Center is making an offer on the entire OLF 8 lot, giving Escambia two sales options
“We’re not going to commit to a lot of hard cash until we have an approved site plan,” Hemmer said. “We will spend $100,000 or $200,000 during the due diligence phase. We only want to do that when we know we have a contract. We are trying to stay as close to the DPZ Master Plan as possible, but there are some things that need to be adjusted, and the province knows that. Hopefully we will agree with the province and get them to make the changes.”
Beulah Town Center is partnering with Metro Development Group, a company that says it specializes in residential land development and manages planned communities throughout Central Florida.
Hemmer says Metro Development will present their vision for OLF 8 at Thursday’s Committee of the Whole meeting and it’s something he believes Beulah residents “will be excited” to hear.
The Beulah Ranch offering
Also in attendance will be Beulah Ranch LLC, represented by Pensacola real estate agent Ryan Bell. The company is offering $30 million for the property, but Bell says he is willing to negotiate.
Bell, whose family has long roots in Pensacola and ties to the Beulah community, envisions a development that also closely aligns with the DPZ Master Plan with its downtown and mix of residential and commercial development. He also wants to pay tribute to Beulah’s horse history.
“I absolutely love downtown, which is why I themed it to Beulah Ranch,” Bell said. “I love Beulah’s equestrian roots. When I went to high school in Tate, my friend’s father had Beulah Land Barbecue, and I would love to bring these types of businesses back to the area. So more of a ‘Yellowstone’ is where we get our inspiration from, a more modern, western feel.”
Bell says the DPZ Masterplan is a “beautiful design” but Will agrees it needs improvement. He also wants to build a service road for large or industrial trucks that serve the “light industrial” portion of the property. Bell says it has been considered and would keep the larger vehicles off Frank Reeder Road. If the county is willing to foot all or part of the bill for the new road’s construction, he says it could increase or decrease the offers developers make by several million dollars.
Bell says he has also reached out to private Fortune 100 individuals interested in bringing businesses to OLF 8, such as a small factory or pharmaceutical or financial companies. He supports attracting businesses similar to Navy Federal Credit Union in that they bring investment dollars to the community and increase quality of life and amenities.
Beulah Ranch LLC is also offering $100,000 in earnest money and Bell says if the county accepts the deal, they would be ready to close in eight months.
“I am super passionate and have the opportunity to close in eight months and have all my design work done, or at least a large part of it, so that we can get started and after those eight months we will have houses, restaurants, shops and can grow jobs. period,” Bell said. “There are now almost 50,000 people living in and around Beulah. That’s the same as the Pensacola city limits. It’s time they get the services they need to support 50,000 people.”
Tri-W Development’s Option to Purchase Offer
Escambia County commissioners will also hear details about Tri-W Development LLC’s offer to purchase the property for $40 million, but with an option to buy it sometime in the next 20 months.
Tri-W Development is a subsidiary of Jim Wilson and Associates LLC, a Montgomery, Alabama-based commercial real estate development company, working with Chad Henderson, founder and CEO of Catalyst Healthcare Real Estate, and former mayor and real estate broker of Pensacola . developer Ashton Hayward will purchase and develop OLF 8.
Tri-W’s OLF 8 offer: Escambia’s board prefers the surprise bidder for OLF 8 in Beulah to other bids
In October, commissioners asked staff to begin negotiating a purchase contract with the company when they first offered $36 million for the OLF 8 property, but no deal has yet been struck.
Under the final option purchase agreement, Tri-W Development could vacate the property at the end of the 20 months after paying just $150,000 to the county.
The developers said they hope to “develop the property as a mixed-use development comprising residential, retail and light industrial uses, pursuant to a project development plan prepared or to be prepared by the purchaser and which may in all respects are changed by the buyer. at our sole discretion.”
Should a deal materialize, the company also agreed to donate 15 to 25 acres of OLF 8 land for an elementary school.
When is the meeting?
The discussion on OLF 8 is the only item on the agenda of the Committee of the Whole. The meeting will begin shortly after Agenda Review at 9:00 AM on Thursday, December 12 at 221 Palafox Place.
This article originally appeared in Pensacola News Journal: Escambia County considers three major bids for OLF 8. What’s included in the offers
