Construction on an incubator for small and first-time business owners will start soon in Brownsville.
The Brownsville Business Incubator project will develop a 6,200-square-foot building with spaces for a café, barber shop and beauty shop, as well as office spaces, while offering networking opportunities, business mentorships and more.
The business incubator will be constructed near the new Brownsville Library and it’s being developed by Escambia County in order to provide services and resources to local business owners or anyone looking to start a new business.
Escambia County officials see the incubator as a catalyst for economic redevelopment in the Brownsville Community Redevelopment Area, and they plan to solicit bids for project construction over the next couple of weeks.
The Brownsville Business Incubator is championed by District 3 County Commissioner Lumon May, who envisions Brownsville becoming the “new downtown Pensacola” with a combination of amenities and walkability.
“I’m happy, I think this is a part of (solving) the puzzle,” May said. “The sheriff, probably about six or seven years ago, asked ‘what can we do in Brownsville?’ And at that time I said it’s not law enforcement, it’s investing in human capital.”
May referenced job training, internship, wellness, infrastructure and after-school programs as efforts that’ve helped turn Brownsville around over the years.
“When I got elected it was all these studies and all this talk about revitalizing Brownsville, and I just think that we have revitalized it,” May said. “Now when you look in Brownsville there’s just a lot of business opportunities. We’ve made it a walkable community, we’ve made it a vibrant community.
“This business incubator is just going to be the next step in (helping) people be able to go to a small restaurant and get something to eat, help small entrepreneurs start their businesses and stay right in Brownsville,” May continued. “It’s where people are expanding, it’s one of the most culturally-diverse neighborhoods in all of Pensacola … I’m excited about this (incubator project).”
They expect the incubator to help entrepreneurs build an initial client base and grow their businesses, then transition to longer-term leases or permanent spaces in other areas.
“Because one of the goals of the Brownsville Business Incubator is to help aspiring entrepreneurs learn how to operate their own business, tenants will be responsible for their own business expenses such as materials, in addition to paying rent in the form of a percentage of revenue,” Kaycee Lagarde, Escambia County strategic communications director said.
The county has invested millions of dollars into developments around Brownsville, with its latest efforts resulting in the new Brownsville Library as well as a septic-to-sewer system conversion project with about 60 participants that cost approximately $11 million.
Plans for the incubator were on pause until the latter project connected the parcel to the sewer system.
Escambia County purchased a two-story, 8,000-square-foot building, the old Mason Lodge which formerly held Klu Klux Klan meetings, in 2021 for $90,000 and spent over $2 million to renovate the structure into the Brownsville Library.
The incubator will be built across the street from the library.
The county has owned the land where the incubator will stand since 2012 and plans to create access roads for the building on North Wentworth Street, Shoemaker Street and West Desoto Street.
The construction contract for the incubator project is expected to go before the Board of County Commissioners for approval in December. Once approved, the county projects they’ll start construction in spring and it’ll take approximately 15 months to complete the building.
Lagarde told the News Journal that the county is still working on construction cost estimates, so they won’t know the total cost of the project until they’ve received bids for the construction contract.
Escambia County is aiming to encourage private sector investment and promote economic development by building the business incubator and offering temporary space for small businesses to lease at lower costs than traditional commercial leases.
Since the project is still in the development phase there are still some details that the county needs to iron out as it moves forward, such as how long tenants will be able to stay in the incubator, whether spaces will be renovated for better uses in the future as well as who’s authorized to make those decisions.
The first round of tenants for the incubator aren’t set in stone at this time either.
Conceptual designs for the project are done however, funded using $350,000 in RESTORE Act funding awarded to the county, and Escambia County is also pursuing $4.2 million in RESTORE Pot 1 funding for project construction.
“Escambia County staff are actively working on an operational plan for the Brownsville Business Incubator, and we look forward to sharing those details with the public and prospective tenants once they are finalized,” Lagarde said. “We are very excited to bring this resource to the Brownsville community to help provide valuable opportunities for aspiring business owners, and we encourage the public to stay tuned for more information as this project moves forward.”
May said he hopes this project will become a model for similar efforts to stimulate an area’s economy and bring more potential entrepreneurs closer to their “American Dream.”
He also said that people who don’t want to become entrepreneurs will still be able to find an opportunity through these projects due to new businesses also creating jobs.
“When you create small businesses, they hire people. … Because they are a part of the neighborhood, they’re going to hire people from the neighborhood,” May said. “A rising tide lifts all boats. One businesses at a time, one person at a time, one neighborhood at a time.”
“There’s not some big, large-scale entrepreneurship economic dream that’s going to bring about reality,” he continued. “To me, it’s baby steps and it’s all about creating jobs and opportunity for everyone.”
