Baptist’s legacy campus

We served patients and our community at our E Street location for more than 72 years. Because we will continue to grow and serve for the next 72 years and beyond, we built the area’s newest, most technologically advanced health care campus in the region at the corner of I-110 and Brent Lane. That location is just three miles north of our original, or legacy, E Street campus.

We made our announcement about the move in June 2019. The very next day, we began our work to determine the best path forward for the legacy campus.

Most health care systems wait until long after they have relocated to begin thinking about the future of a former campus. Across the country, it is common for vacant hospitals to sit for 10, 15 or even more years before meaningful efforts are initiated. In Birmingham, Alabama, Carraway Hospital closed in 2008. It changed hands a few times over the years until 2020. That’s when a public/private partnership was established. The City of Birmingham provided over $13 million in incentives to bring in a developer to demolish and redevelop the 47-acre campus over a series of phases. Demolition began in 2022.

Our approach is different. From the beginning, we understood how transformational the legacy campus’s redevelopment could be for the community and how important it was to accelerate that work. We don’t want the redevelopment of our legacy campus to span decades.

Guided by our board of directors, we set down the path of developing a vision for the future of the campus that met three key factors: Baptist’s mission as an independent, not-for-profit health care system; what the community wants and needs; and what the market can support.

How were ideas for the legacy campus developed?

We convened the community: Over 70 cross-sector leaders participated in our community advisory council. Our board chair commissioned a special committee that included board members and added community experts. This committee held seven working sessions in 2021 and 2022 to create a redevelopment vision that met the three factors mentioned above.
We invested in learning and research: Baptist participated in a national learning collaborative and hired James Lima, a leading urban planner, and his team to do the research and market analysis. Baptist conducted stakeholder interviews as well as a neighborhood survey to better understand the immediate neighbors’ perspectives on the future of the campus.
We built a vision and partnerships that supported that vision. We engaged with the housing departments in the city and county throughout this process, with the Escambia County Housing Finance Authority, and with then-Mayor Grover Robinson and the Pensacola City Council, who in May of 2022 unanimously adopted a resolution in support of the redevelopment vision. They praised us for our work and resource commitment toward that redevelopment vision. We had discussions with organizations in our community that deliver the services residents said they wanted – access to jobs and job training services, social services, education and training, health care services and even childcare services.
We reviewed our data on health care needs of the community and began discussions with others who also provide health care services to the area about potential partnerships or clinics on the campus.
In the summer of 2022, we went to market with a development offering that was aligned with the shared vision.
We received offers only for multi-family, mixed-income developments on a portion of the campus, and we chose Paces Foundation and Soho Housing because their offer most directly implemented the redevelopment vision. We did not receive any offers for redevelopment of the entire campus.
Then we thought creatively about the next steps: How could we accelerate the demolition and redevelopment? We knew that given the financial pressures the pandemic placed on our organization, we would not be able to do this alone. We saw the Florida legislature made historic investments in attainable workforce housing. We saw federal investments in site preparation for attainable housing developments that provide much-needed military housing. We knew there must be a faster path forward, so we began talking to the City and our state legislative delegation about the potential for the land to become public. This would allow the City to receive the funding necessary to accomplish the demolition to pave the way for the redevelopment vision to come to life.

Current developments.

We have supported the City on various grants to aid in the redevelopment and have continued to search for other funding pathways to bring about the fastest redevelopment possible.
We are incredibly grateful for Mayor DC Reeves’ willingness to go beyond the City’s original commitment to the redevelopment vision to consider taking on the lead role for the benefit of our community. And we are so thankful for our state legislative delegation’s commitment to this redevelopment.
In early January 2024, Mayor DC Reeves and Mark Faulkner signed a letter of intent stating that if the City received sufficient funding to demolish and remediate the legacy campus, Baptist will donate the legacy campus to the City for redevelopment. The demolition and abatement are estimated at $16.5 million.
Baptist is fully committed to making this work for our community. Our board of directors has approved the donation of proceeds from the Paces sale ($2.9 million), a donation of the balance of the campus – 31 acres in the heart of Pensacola, and a pledge of an additional $3 million match to the City/County’s intended combined pledge of $3 million toward the demolition and abatement costs.
We believe this to be the fastest path to redevelopment and, therefore, the best path forward for the neighborhood, broader community and our organization’s ability to continue our mission of providing health care in our community.

Why Is Baptist donating 31 acres to the City?

By donating the land to the City, the property becomes public. This opens many avenues for funding that Baptist is ineligible for as a not-for-profit health care provider. The Florida legislature made historic investments in attainable workforce housing last session. We have seen federal investments in site preparation for attainable housing developments that provide much-needed military housing. We began talking to the City and our delegation about the potential for the land to become public so that the city could receive the funding necessary to accomplish the demolition to pave the way for the redevelopment vision to come to life.

Have others sought federal and state funding to redevelop land?

Yes. Most, if not all, hospital campus redevelopments of the scale of ours have been achieved through public/private partnerships. In Birmingham, Alabama, Carraway Hospital closed in 2008. It changed hands a few times over the years until 2020. That’s when a public/private partnership was established. The City of Birmingham provided over $13 million in incentives to bring in a developer to demolish and redevelop the 47-acre campus over a series of phases. Demolition began in 2022.

Why did Baptist move from its original location?

After years of facility studies and thorough review, it was determined that the legacy Baptist Hospital campus could not be renovated to meet current and future needs.

Baptist moved just over three miles from the legacy location. Economic advisors recommended moving more than 10 miles north to a more affluent and fast-growing community. We were determined to find a location close to the legacy campus neighborhood and more accessible to the broader region we now serve.
We worked with a real estate partner who spent an entire year acquiring the 57-acre property for a new campus that achieves both goals. This new neighborhood is no more affluent than the previous – in fact, socio-economic data shows similar conditions for residents in the area.
To make it easier for individuals who rely on public transportation, we built a bus stop on our new campus and worked with ECAT to add a direct route from the legacy campus to the new campus.

Why is Baptist unable to provide all the funding for the legacy campus redevelopment?

The past three years have been challenging for health care providers nationwide, and Baptist is no exception. The impact of the pandemic on staffing costs, supply chain disruptions and operations were, and in some ways, remain significant. We are currently not in a position to fund this project in one year ourselves, as doing so would hinder our ability to fulfill our core mission of providing health care for all in our community.

How does Baptist support its core mission?

Since Baptist was established more than 70 years ago, we have been deeply engaged in our community. In fiscal year 2023 alone:

Baptist provided $64 million in unreimbursed care to serve uninsured or underinsured patients in our community.
Over 450 leaders and team members engaged in service “beyond the walls” in the community with a combined total of 75,000 volunteer hours at a volunteer value of $2.7 million.
Our team engaged in 77,971 encounters with residents beyond health care through community outreach, our Faith Health Network, Andrews Institute sports medicine outreach and athletic trainers at area schools, wellness seminars and support groups.
Baptist leaders served on the boards of or engaged with 79 nonprofits and community-based organizations in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.
Baptist provided financial support for other health care organizations, including annual funding of Community Health Northwest Florida at $550,000 as well as sponsorships of other nonprofits doing work to improve social determinants of health and quality of life in the communities we serve.

Can the existing buildings be repurposed?

Perhaps, but developers would make those decisions based on what is practical for the intended purpose.

Is the legacy campus abandoned?

Baptist has not abandoned the legacy campus.

More than 200 team members continue to work at the site, and security patrols the campus around the clock.
Baptist continues to have a dedicated programmatic focus in our legacy hospital neighborhood. Through the Baptist Faith and Community Health team, we provide:
- Wellness education, health screenings and navigation services for the older adult/senior population weekly at Westminster Village and monthly at Wesley Scott
- A Durable Medical Equipment Walker Program in partnership with Greater Little Rock Baptist Church
- And we help coordinate a Church 2 Church Food Pantry that distributes food monthly to five churches in 32501.
Baptist recently partnered with the City of Pensacola to write a grant to develop a new senior center at the Fricker Center location that was awarded $4 million in February 2023. Baptist will partner with the City to provide a health education and outreach program at the new location.