Centennial Bank gets in on downtown action


  • April 7, 2015
  • /   Carlton Proctor
  • /   economy
Centennial Bank’s decision to build a new branch on a vacant site fronting Garden Street is another sign of the growing vitality of downtown Pensacola. The Arkansas-based bank recently bought the 0.75-acre site at Garden and Tarragona for $800,000. The property is part of a 5-acre site — formerly the Seville Inn — that’s owned by local investors Jim Cronley and Ron and Emily Hedgecock. When Cronley bought the property in 2009, he envisioned developing the site as a financial services center. [caption id="attachment_21013" align="alignright" width="450"]Rendering of the future Centennial Bank building at Tarragona and Garden streets in downtown Pensacola. Rendering of the future Centennial Bank building at Tarragona and Garden streets in downtown Pensacola.[/caption] Blaise Adams, Centennial’s market president in Pensacola, agrees. “The more I looked, the more I became convinced the corner of Garden and Tarragona would be the perfect location for our downtown branch, especially with what Quint has planned down the street,” Adams said. Adams, of course, is referring to downtown developer Quint Studer and his planned $50 million mixed-use project on the former site of the Pensacola News Journal. Studer Properties LLP plans to begin razing the former PNJ building in May, and start construction later this year on a 250-unit apartment building that will include some retail space. While the Studer project was a big influence, other key downtown projects also played into Adams' decision to build on the Garden St. site. “We’re excited to be near the new YMCA, Quint's project and new IHMC building.” The $15 million YMCA project was set in motion two years ago when Studer and his wife, Rishy, donated a one-acre site on the former PNJ property and $5 million to the YMCA. Since then, the group’s board of directors have been waging a private fundraising campaign and have gotten major donations from the Bear Foundation, Teri Levin and Fred Levin and the Switzer Family, among others. The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition has an $8 million expansion under way at its Alcaniz Street headquarters. What’s more, Centennial’s decision to make a significant capital investment in downtown Pensacola follows several other financial institutions who’ve made the same decision. The Bank of Pensacola in early January opened its new $4.5 million headquarters at Main and Palafox. Bank of Pensacola President Bill Woodbury said the decision to build there was directly related to the downtown renaissance. Woodbury cited investment activity by Studer Properties that includes the multimillion renovation of The Artisan, construction of the multiuse stadium at the Community Maritime Park, and Studer’s Maritime Place office building. Over the past few years other financial institutions, including local credit unions Gulf Winds, Pen Air and Members First, have made significant capital investments and expanded their workforces in downtown. All this capital improvement activity is creating its own gravity that is attracting local and outside investors, according to Don Neal, whose Neal and Company brokered the $800,000 Centennial site sale. Centennial_Bank_renderingNeal said he learned recently the engineering firm Hatch Mott McDonald is moving its Pensacola headquarters downtown to two floors in the Sun Trust bank building on Garden. “To me that’s another indication that everybody wants in on the action that going on in downtown Pensacola,” Neal said. “And I think you’re going to see more companies moving from the Cordova Mall and Nine Mile Road areas to the downtown area.” Neal said his company is located on Garden Street largely because his employees enjoy working downtown. “They have so many choices for lunch and shopping,” he said. “There are very few places in this city where you can do all that and still be within walking distance of your workplace.”
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