A proposal to help Hixardt expand its downtown Pensacola footprint is working its way through city channels now. Shannon Nickinson/Studer Community Institute

Maybe this time is Hixardt’s time.

A proposal for a new corporate headquarters for Mike Hicks’ company first saw the light of day in 2011. It sounded like just what the economic development doctor ordered.

A local company, based in the burgeoning technology sector, wanted to expand its corporate footprint. Jobs with a higher average wage in the heart of downtown Pensacola.

What could be better?

The closing date for the sale was amended three times and ultimately the deal fizzled when the financing couldn’t be put together.

Now on Dec. 7, Pensacola City Council — in its capacity as the Community Redevelopment Agency — will discuss an invitation for proposals to redevelop the same parking lot as a precursor to bringing the Hixardt deal back to life.

Hicks has worked with FloridaWest, the county’s economic development agency, on a new financing package and the purchase of the parking lot now awaits at market-rate appraisal of the property.

A 2012 appraisal put the market rate for the parcel at $565,000.

Whatever is built there, the CRA says it will have to be a building no smaller than 40,000 square feet and finished by a specified date; the owner or tenant must occupy it within 30 days of the certificate of occupancy being issued; there can’t be an application for an economic development ad valorem tax exemption (EDATE).

EDATEs have been getting a workout of late, with Pensacola City Council called to a special meeting to review the EDATE application for the redevelopment project at the former Pensacola News Journal site on Romana Street.

Those exemptions would apply to the property taxes that would be assessed on a project based on the post-investment value of the property. The owners of the PNJ property, Quint and Rishy Studer, plan to invest in a mixed-use apartment and retail development estimated to be valued near $50 million.

They would continue to pay property taxes on the site based on its current assessed value for 10 years.

The Studers bought the site in 2013 for $3.4 million.

The 2014 taxable value of the property is $2,964,553. The tax bill on the PNJ property generated about $80,000. In 10 years, the tax bill would be assessed on the full, post-investment value of the new project.

For a look at all of the projects in Escambia County that have received EDATEs, click here.

The CRA may be feeling political pressure to have some good investment news happen. Earlier this year, the CRA rejected offers to develop the long-vacant, city-owned Hawkshaw property on Ninth Avenue.

If the Hixardt deal is deemed a good investment for the city this time around, may its path to fruition be shorter and less fraught with peril than it was in the past.

As downtown Pensacola undeniably has blossomed in recent years, more forward motion is needed to keep that entrepreneurial spirit humming.

For every project like the expansion of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition that is humming along, there is a still-empty Pensacola Technology Campus.

Pensacola Technology Campus. Shannon Nickinson/Studer Community Institute

And a still sparsely leased Community Maritime Park.

And a handful of other empty lots just waiting for their chance to join the Upside of Florida.