USPS Publication Number 16300
T h is C o m mu n i t y N ewsp a p er is a pu bl ica t ion of E sca m bia-S a n t a Rosa B a r Assoc ia t ion
Se r v i ng t he Fi r st Jud icial Ci rcu it
Section A, Page 1
Vol. 20, No. 3
Visit The Summation Weekly Online: www.summationweekly.com
January 15, 2020
1 Section, 10 Pages
East Garden District Street Diet Makes Room for the Future
“We wanted to make sure that the environment promotes walkability to where you could access a lot of the ground floor retail and experiences along Jefferson and Garden streets and certainly, an element of that is making people feel safe.”
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By Gina Castro
hile many of us are planning our new year diets, downtown Pensacola will also be slimming down through what healthcare real estate developer and Pensacola native Chad Henderson is calling a “street diet.”
Henderson is pioneering the East Garden District (EGD) project, which is bounded by Palafox, Chase, Tarragona and Garden streets and spans Jefferson Street. The project is making additions that benefit the safety of pedestrians and strengthens community bonds all while paving the way for a more environmentally friendly city. Henderson estimates this project will cost about $50 million. A primary focus for this project is to improve the walkability of the neglected two-block area by implementing a street diet to Jefferson Street. The street diet will create narrower roadways to calm traffic and wider sidewalks. “The street diet will allow for much more of a walkable environment that promotes pedestrian safety,” Henderson said. “In other words, it will be an environment that is very comfortable for people and allowable for cars but not necessarily comfortable for vehicles. However, you certainly can still have vehicular access. It’s just much more of a pedestrian safe environment.” EGD decided to implement this street diet after seeing the results of Studer Properties’ similar project at Southtowne and the YMCA. The area, located on Intendencia between Tarragona and Jefferson, features wide sidewalks, street lighting and crosswalks. Henderson plans to add onto
that idea of downtown being more pedestrian friendly. The roadside of the wide brick sidewalks will feature tall trees for much needed shade during Florida’s hot summer days. There will also be larger crosswalks and plentiful street lighting, which will help make pedestrians more visible to oncoming vehicles while also driving more foot traffic to nearby shops. “We wanted to make sure that the environment promotes walkability to where you could access a lot of the ground floor retail and experiences along Jefferson and Garden streets,” Henderson said. “And certainly, an element of that is making people feel safe.” EGD also wants to help strengthen Pensacola’s community feel by adding an Urban Plaza to the project. Henderson has looked to the father of Pensacola’s City plan, Elias Durnford, to help establish the community and connectivity the project hopes for. Tosh Belsinger, with 1559 Advisors, has been brought in by Henderson to assist in the development and marketing of the East Garden District project. “The EGD has certainly drawn inspiration from Pensacola’s rich history,” Belsinger said. “When the British took control of Pensacola from the Spanish in 1764, Elias Durnford was appointed Commanding Engineer and Surveyor-General of the new British West Florida. Durnford laid
out a new city plan for Pensacola, much of which is still intact today, including Seville Square and Plaza Ferdinand. The East Garden District’s Urban Plaza on Jefferson Street will pay tribute to Durnford’s vision for Pensacola, and the importance of beautiful public spaces in urban planning and community building.” The Urban Plaza features an open space with plenty of seating and shade for comfortable outdoor eating or a spot to rest and chat with friends. “The motivation for the Urban Plaza was to create places where there could be gathering spots,” Henderson said. “A lot of the EGD was framed up with the mindset of creating spots for people to gather, have human capital exchange and promote ideas of interest in entrepreneurship and other ideas. We wanted to have a good gathering place for people to get together and enjoy our historic downtown and the amenities around it but also foster conversations to move our community forward.” Following their initiative of moving the Pensacola community forward, EGD will also be making environmentally friendly additions to the project. One of the issues facing Pensacola is flooding from rain runoff. So, EGD will slow, treat and store rainwater from the roadways and walkways through environmentally friendly systems such as pervious pavers, subsurface tree storage cells and beautiful rain gardens. “There is always the pressure of storm water within downtown,”
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Henderson said. “Implementing a bioretention aspect to the project will help alleviate some of the storm water concerns within this area of downtown, and that was important to us.” Systems like pervious pavers help remove pollutants from the water by absorbing the rainwater into the gravel base before letting the water enter the soil. This filtration system reduces the amount of pollutants that enter the soil. These environmentally friendly systems also add an elegant and modern feel to the area like some larger cities showcase. “This would be, to our knowledge, the first of its kind in the immediate area, but certainly larger cities, such as Austin and Nashville, have utilized these techniques, and we have learned from those examples,” Henderson said. In bringing these revolutionary ideas to the forefront of the establishment of EGD, Henderson hopes to inspire more of Pensacola’s stakeholders to follow his footsteps. “One of the points to note is just how this development can be a case study or a white paper for multiple stakeholders in our community, such as the City, the CRA, the state, Gulf Power and other stakeholders, to showcase what development can look like throughout our downtown,” Henderson said. “It’s really a stakeholder engagement opportunity for a lot of different entities and authorities to come together and talk about good development and moving forward.”
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