Last stretch of city woods under development
- March 11, 2015
- / William Rabb
- / community-dashboard
One of the last, untouched stretches of wilderness inside the Pensacola city limits is now giving way to a mattress store.
It is about one-third of the development that was once planned for the southeast corner of Airport Boulevard and Davis Highway, just 300 feet from Carpenter's Creek.
Tree cutting and land clearing began this week on the venture, which will require what officials are calling a vast amount of earth moving, landscaping, tree removal – and tree planting.
In the midst of Pensacola’s struggle to deal with stormwater and flooding issues, both sides of the debate are using it as an example of environmental problems and solutions.
“It’s probably better to develop that area, in the middle of all that other development, than it would be to build out on Nine Mile Road or some place, where people have to drive a long way,” said Christian Wagley, an environmental and green-building design consultant in Pensacola. Development in outlying areas contributes to sprawl, road construction and fuel consumption.
[caption id="attachment_19739" align="aligncenter" width="640"]
Development at Airport Boulevard and Davis Highway will bring a mattress store. William Rabb/PensacolaToday[/caption]
Others say that development along creeks and streams in Pensacola has gone too far and exacerbates flooding. Just north of the mattress store development, the city will soon begin using a federal grant to rebuild a sharp bend in Carpenter’s Creek, which gobbled up large chunks of several homes’ back yards in the April 2014 flood.
It's a rare use of taxpayer dollars to benefit private homeowners, officials said.
“Those homes should never have been built there in the first place,” said City Councilwoman Sherri Myers, whose District 2 includes both projects.
Other city department heads point out that with the mattress store, a stormwater pond will be built, twice as many trees will be planted as will be removed, and more than 5,000 shrubs will be planted.
“They’re all native plants, too, so it won’t need any special irrigation or extra watering,” said Bill Weeks, inspection services administrator for the city.
The developer will pay more than $62,000 into the city’s tree planting fund to mitigate the removal of some trees that can’t be replaced on the site.
Those funds can be used to plant trees elsewhere in the city. In all, some 56 trees will be removed, including five oaks with trunks more than 20 inches in diameter. About 100 trees will be replanted, Weeks said.
The sloped, wooded property has been considered prime real estate for years, and many have wondered why it hasn’t been developed sooner.
City records show a northern California development company, United Growth, had planned to turn the entire seven acres into a mattress store, a strip mall, and a restaurant. But enough tenants have not been found, Weeks said, and the project was scaled back to include only the mattress store, access roads and about 25 parking spots.
The stormwater pond still will be built large enough to accommodate the larger development, which suggests the strip mall eventually will come, Weeks said.
The developers bought the property in January for $1.2 million, county tax records show. The parcel was purchased from Mo' Airport, which is operated by the Moulton family of Pensacola, well-known for their extensive commercial real estate work.
Neither the developers nor Moulton representatives returned phone calls from PensacolaToday.com.
Exactly which mattress store will anchor the development is not listed on the plans, but United Growth's website shows it has developed sites for a number of Mattress Firms, which last year opened a store just a mile to the east on Bayou Boulevard.
Mattress stores have proliferated across the United States in recent years, in part because prices have climbed, labor costs have not, and mattresses aren't built to last for decades like they once were, according to news reports.
Myers and others say that while the new mattress store at Airport and Davis had to meet regulations meant to protect trees and waterways and limit downstream flooding, those rules don't go far enough. Stormwater retention ponds, for example, aren't even required in some states. Here, regulations stipulate that they must be large enough to catch the first inch of runoff from a development's impervious surfaces. That's good, but may not be enough for really heavy rainfalls, Myers said.
The ponds also have to be maintained to prevent erosion on their banks, which can lead to siltation problems downstream, said Myers, who recently showed PensacolaToday a number of stormwater pond issues near Carpenter's Creek.
A number of developments along Carpenter's Creek in the last decade have met regulations, yet may have contributed to problems because the creek waters had no place to expand. Maps produced by the Escambia County Geographic Information Systems Department, for example, show that a large movie theater on Bayou Boulevard was built almost within the ancient creek bed.
The 30-foot elevation from the bottom of the creek cuts right through the corner of the Carmike Bayou 15 cinema, formerly known as the Rave Theater.
Without improved stormwater management, less development in riparian zones, and more tree and wetland protection, Pensacola will continue to see flooding.
Biologists say that one consequence of recent development along Carpenter's Creek can be found where it crosses under 12th Avenue. The street was heavily damaged in the April flood, and on dry days, a large sandbar now fills part of the beginning of Bayou Texar, just east of the bridge. Nearby, homes, businesses and parking lots were damaged when the creek rose from its banks.
Although a local environmental consulting company has developed plans to restore parts of Carpenter's Creek, in many ways, it may be too late for this urban stream that cuts through the heart of the city's busiest commercial and residential areas.
Only a few parcels of undeveloped land remain.
Myers and others say it should be used as a lesson for protecting other creeks in Escambia County that haven't been so built upon.
Development at Airport Boulevard and Davis Highway will bring a mattress store. William Rabb/PensacolaToday[/caption]
Others say that development along creeks and streams in Pensacola has gone too far and exacerbates flooding. Just north of the mattress store development, the city will soon begin using a federal grant to rebuild a sharp bend in Carpenter’s Creek, which gobbled up large chunks of several homes’ back yards in the April 2014 flood.
It's a rare use of taxpayer dollars to benefit private homeowners, officials said.
“Those homes should never have been built there in the first place,” said City Councilwoman Sherri Myers, whose District 2 includes both projects.
Other city department heads point out that with the mattress store, a stormwater pond will be built, twice as many trees will be planted as will be removed, and more than 5,000 shrubs will be planted.
“They’re all native plants, too, so it won’t need any special irrigation or extra watering,” said Bill Weeks, inspection services administrator for the city.
The developer will pay more than $62,000 into the city’s tree planting fund to mitigate the removal of some trees that can’t be replaced on the site.
Those funds can be used to plant trees elsewhere in the city. In all, some 56 trees will be removed, including five oaks with trunks more than 20 inches in diameter. About 100 trees will be replanted, Weeks said.
The sloped, wooded property has been considered prime real estate for years, and many have wondered why it hasn’t been developed sooner.
City records show a northern California development company, United Growth, had planned to turn the entire seven acres into a mattress store, a strip mall, and a restaurant. But enough tenants have not been found, Weeks said, and the project was scaled back to include only the mattress store, access roads and about 25 parking spots.
The stormwater pond still will be built large enough to accommodate the larger development, which suggests the strip mall eventually will come, Weeks said.
The developers bought the property in January for $1.2 million, county tax records show. The parcel was purchased from Mo' Airport, which is operated by the Moulton family of Pensacola, well-known for their extensive commercial real estate work.
Neither the developers nor Moulton representatives returned phone calls from PensacolaToday.com.
Exactly which mattress store will anchor the development is not listed on the plans, but United Growth's website shows it has developed sites for a number of Mattress Firms, which last year opened a store just a mile to the east on Bayou Boulevard.
Mattress stores have proliferated across the United States in recent years, in part because prices have climbed, labor costs have not, and mattresses aren't built to last for decades like they once were, according to news reports.
Myers and others say that while the new mattress store at Airport and Davis had to meet regulations meant to protect trees and waterways and limit downstream flooding, those rules don't go far enough. Stormwater retention ponds, for example, aren't even required in some states. Here, regulations stipulate that they must be large enough to catch the first inch of runoff from a development's impervious surfaces. That's good, but may not be enough for really heavy rainfalls, Myers said.
The ponds also have to be maintained to prevent erosion on their banks, which can lead to siltation problems downstream, said Myers, who recently showed PensacolaToday a number of stormwater pond issues near Carpenter's Creek.
A number of developments along Carpenter's Creek in the last decade have met regulations, yet may have contributed to problems because the creek waters had no place to expand. Maps produced by the Escambia County Geographic Information Systems Department, for example, show that a large movie theater on Bayou Boulevard was built almost within the ancient creek bed.
The 30-foot elevation from the bottom of the creek cuts right through the corner of the Carmike Bayou 15 cinema, formerly known as the Rave Theater.
Without improved stormwater management, less development in riparian zones, and more tree and wetland protection, Pensacola will continue to see flooding.
Biologists say that one consequence of recent development along Carpenter's Creek can be found where it crosses under 12th Avenue. The street was heavily damaged in the April flood, and on dry days, a large sandbar now fills part of the beginning of Bayou Texar, just east of the bridge. Nearby, homes, businesses and parking lots were damaged when the creek rose from its banks.
Although a local environmental consulting company has developed plans to restore parts of Carpenter's Creek, in many ways, it may be too late for this urban stream that cuts through the heart of the city's busiest commercial and residential areas.
Only a few parcels of undeveloped land remain.
Myers and others say it should be used as a lesson for protecting other creeks in Escambia County that haven't been so built upon.
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