Pensacola Earns Second Approval for Port Expansion

The city of Pensacola, Fla., announced June 22 that it has earned the second of three approvals from the Triumph Gulf Coast board of directors needed to finalize a $76 million grant that would transform the Port of Pensacola.

The next major milestone is approval of the grant agreement, which Reeves said the city hopes to bring to the Triumph board later this summer. After that would be lease terms between the city and Birdon, both of which require Pensacola City Council approval.

The expansion will allow Birdon America Inc., to establish its headquarters at the port. The facility would create 2,000 jobs with 1,437 jobs at an average salary of $68,000 annually and 563 jobs at an average salary of $112,000.

The Triumph Gulf Coast board of directors is a seven-member panel that oversees the distribution of approximately $1.5 billion in economic damages recovered from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

On June 22, the board approved the term sheet for the grant that it approved in January to establish shipbuilder Birdon America Inc.’s Southeastern headquarters and a Tier 2 advanced ship manufacturing facility in Pensacola. The term sheet outlines the components of the grant agreement.

“I am grateful to the team at the city who worked tirelessly to get us to this point,” Mayor D.C. Reeves said. “Today we are one step closer to bringing this transformational project to life at our port. We’re focused on building Pensacola’s future, and Triumph’s investment helps us do just that.”

When fully approved, this investment will support a 400,000-square-foot shipbuilding facility at the port, designed to strengthen the local economy and support U.S. military interests through the production of critical modules for ships and submarines, according to a news release from the city of Pensacola. It is planned to become the largest job creation project in the city’s history and would be one of the largest grants approved by Triumph Gulf Coast.

The total project cost is $275 million, with contributions for the project expected from Triumph, the Florida Job Growth Fund ($14 million), U.S. Department of Commerce ($33 million) and Birdon ($152 million).

Triumph funding will be used for construction costs associated with two new shipbuilding facilities at the port. The $105 million construction program includes a Phase 1 panel line and module fabrication warehouse and a Phase 2 assembly bay, together housing advanced ship manufacturing and office space.

The city will retain ownership of the facilities as public infrastructure and will enter into a long-term ground lease with Birdon America Inc. for its use. Established in 1977, Birdon is a globally established maritime engineering and shipbuilding company with more than 15 years of proven performance delivering major defense contracts for the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and allied defense forces worldwide. The new facility will be able to produce complex Navy ship modules for Tier 1 yards, submarine modules and complete surface vessels up to 400 feet, directly supporting the federal objective of restoring America’s maritime dominance and expanding the U.S. maritime industrial base.

The overall goal is to catalyze a broader maritime and defense cluster, attract suppliers and leverage partnerships with the University of West Florida’s WAVE Center, Pensacola State College and the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition to create a sustained talent pipeline and applied research ecosystem, the city said.