New life for a big piece of downtown Pensacola


  • June 23, 2014
  • /   Shannon Nickinson
  • /   economy

Tuesday is going to be a big night in the real estate life of the Escambia County School District.

The School Board will consider two property sales at the June 24 meeting.

One is the sale of the old Vernon McDaniel building at 215 W. Garden St. to the St. Petersburg firm Hemmer Consulting, LLC for $3.25 million.

The second is the sale of the old Pickens School site on North Hayne Street to Manna Food Pantries for $125,000 go through Tuesday night.

If the sale of the Garden Street property goes through, it would put life into 4.82 acres in the heart of downtown Pensacola.

Hemmer is a privately held management consulting firm founded in 2011 that specializes in strategic acquisitions and development of distressed properties, according to the company’s website.

The company’s president, Fred Hemmer, has more than 30 years of professional contacts in the banking industry, and those relationships allow him to “purchase distressed properties from other sources, improve the asset’s condition when necessary to increase value, sell the assets with six to nine months on average,” the website says.

Hemmer is not a stranger to the Pensacola market. According to the company’s website, they:

-- Bought and sold a condo in Perdido Key in October 2012; bought and sold a warehouse mortgage in Pensacola in 2013; own the note for another condo in Perdido Key.

-- Developed a 127-lot subdivision set to open this August of this year, Huntington Creek, “the newest upscale community in West Pensacola” located on Mobile Highway just east of Beulah Road, “just six minutes away from Navy Federal Credit Union” the site says.

The development merges “luxury lifestyle living with country charm.” Visit the website here.

-- Purchased 960 acres of undeveloped land in December of 2013 in Pensacola; 1,400 acres of a residential subdivision in Milton is under contract.

And they may not be alone in their plans for the property.

Realtor Danny Zimmern is representing someone partnering with Hemmer in the deal. Zimmern’s client is not publicly identified, he said, “their role hasn’t completely been determined yet.”

The sale includes a 150-day investigation period for the buyer to determine if the property is suitable for the intended use. The closing date shall be within 30 days after the end of the investigation period, which can be extended for two, 30-day periods by making additional $25,000 deposits for each extension.

The district has had a string of good news when it comes to vacant properties of late.

-- The sale of the old Brownsville Middle School property to Body of Christ Ministries Worldwide Inc. for $450,000 should close Tuesday.

The Rev. Paul Porterfield wants to use the building as a home for his church and to get a planned day-care center up and running.

Porterfield’s church, about 100 members strong, has been meeting at 2514 W. Cervantes St. next door to Kay’s Fashions and they look forward to having a new home. It has been in Pensacola for about seven years, he said.

Porterfield wants to develop the building in phases, though he says he plans for the entire structure ultimately to be occupied. Plans include rebuilding the library for public use, a community center that will host GED courses, vocational training, adult literacy classes and after-school programs focused on building students’ academic skills.

Brownsville Middle, at Avery Street and Hollywood Avenue, has been vacant since it closed in the 2007-2008 school year as part of a rezoning effort in the district. In 2009, The Rev. LuTimothyMay and his congregation at Friendship Missionary Baptist church offered to buy the building, for $800,000 given the amount of work the building needed at that time. The district made a counteroffer of a little more than $1 million. An anonymous donor offered to give the church the difference, but the deal ultimately fell apart in acrimony.

In 2011, a $1 million deal to buy the building also fell through.

-- The lease to purchase agreement for the former Allie Yniestra School building by Remnant Church of Deliverance Christian Academy. Tauro Jenkins wants to turn the old school at Q and Jackson streets into a home for a summer enrichment program and ultimately develop educational enrichment programs for the school year there.

--- A.V. Clubbs was last used as an alternative school in the 2009-2010 school year. It is under contract now to be sold to White Development Co., based in Clearwater, for $1.1 million. Zimmern, who is the School District real estate professional on that deal, says White plans to redevelop that building and is “trying to get a tenant committed.”

For a look at the district's five-year history of real estate transactions, click here.

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