Palafox Street was lit up for the holidays with some $150,000 worth of lights purchased with bed tax revenue. Photo by Laura Bogan

Downtown Pensacola has so much going for it these days.

• Palafox was named one of the 10 Great Streets in America by the American Planning Association
• The Palafox Market draws thousands of people to its farmer’s market on Saturdays in the summer
• Gallery Night keeps getting bigger and bigger
• And this year the new Christmas lights that lit up the city drew locals as well as tourists downtown.

The Downtown Improvement Board played and plays a big role in all of this. So the proposal to lease City Hall space to DIB seems to make a lot of sense. As the Pensacola News Journal put it in its editorial this week:

“The Downtown Improvement Board needs a small amount of office space. A proposal from Councilman Larry B. Johnson to lease space to the DIB would solve the agency’s problem, make use of the wasted space at city hall and — most importantly — save taxpayers’ money.

It’s a no-brainer and council members should make it happen.”

Think of where downtown was just five years ago, and look at where it is today. Johnson’s proposal does indeed make a lot of sense.

Here are links to the PNJ editorial and a guest column Johnson wrote for the newspaper.

OPINION: Space, smoke and fire at city

Viewpoint: Less city taxpayers