By the time a renovated and expanded Bay Center complex opens for business, the streets of downtown Pensacola could look very different, with a cluster of new and improved hotels offering accommodation to at least twice as many area visitors as are available today.
Mayor D.C. Reeves said that city planners have contracted with four developers eager to tap into an expanding market in a growing metropolitan area.
When the multiple projects, some of which have already gotten underway, are completed, the city will have more than doubled the 579 hotel rooms presently available within a 2-mile radius of the Bay Center, Reeves said.
That’s on top of the 6,000 hotel rooms that currently exist within a 10-mile radius of downtown.
The ongoing expansion of the lodging industry is unlike anything Greater Pensacola Chamber of Commerce President Todd Thomson has seen.
“Since I’ve been involved this is definitely the biggest group surge of hotel growth,” he said.
He said the Chamber should see increased recruitment opportunities as a result of the new development.
But with so much hotel development occurring seemingly all at once, is it possible Pensacola is overbooking?
The answer would be a resounding no, according to Nicole Gislason, the executive director of the HAAS Center at the University of West Florida.
Gislason said that while the HAAS Center has not engaged in formal research on the matter, she’s confident that adding an estimated 585 new rooms isn’t going to overflow an existing void in available hotel space.
“It’s going to take a while before Escambia County saturates the market,” she said.
Florida’s population has increased nearly 7% since 2019, and the Pensacola metro area, which includes Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, has grown approximately 14% since 2015, reaching 543,000 residents, according to HAAS’s estimates. Projections anticipate nearly 600,000 residents by 2035.
Haas Center data shows that since 2010, the hospitality and leisure sector has shown the most significant job growth, followed by hospitals, manufacturing and retail, Gislason reported to the Greater Pensacola Chamber of Commerce at a January discussion of the state of the area economy.
As it stands now, Gislason said, Pensacola simply does not have the hotel inventory to meet the needs of a vibrant market.
“We don’t have the product. We don’t have enough hotel beds to boost tourism,” she said.
A revamped Bay Center complex will increase the lure to visit
Good news emerged in April following a two hour meeting between elected officials of Escambia County and the city of Pensacola regarding the future of the 40-year-old Bay Center. The two governments agreed to work together to renovate and expand the facility with details to be worked out possibly as soon as June.
The expansion could include adding a multi-use center of sorts that conceivably could host indoor sports as well as conventions.
A proposal seeking bids to design and build the expansion is expected to go out sometime later this year.
At the April meeting, local hoteliers opposed a suggestion that a hotel, built through a public-private partnership, be part of the expansion. Ted Ent, the CEO of Innisfree Hotels, cited the ongoing growth as one reason for protesting.
“Because of over 500-plus rooms of new development, either under construction or in the planning stages right now in downtown Pensacola, in the related area, adding a new hotel at this time is not a good idea,” Ent told those gathered.
Ent told the News Journal May 11 that his opposition to a hotel being built at the site of the Bay Center project should in no way be interpreted as his being against either the expansion itself or the hotel construction going on in Pensacola at this time.
“I am very bullish on our community and, while we are a beach hotel company, I believe the Bay Center will be a rising tide for all the existing hotels as well as those under development. What the Bay Center will do is allow us to book things like sporting events, groups and car shows or trade shows,” he said. “A space like that will help us to fill in the shoulder season.”
Neither did Ent object to the rehabilitation or demolition and reconstruction of the 212-room, 15-story Grand Hotel, which has stood vacant since being damaged in 2020 by Hurricane Sally.
Both Legends Global, Escambia County’s management company for the Bay Center, and WT Partnership, the city’s independently hired consultants, agreed that a successful multi-use center would require something be done at the Grand Hotel site.
So what does the future hold for the hotel industry in downtown Pensacola?
Reverb by Hard Rock
In August of 2024 the Pensacola City Council approved a 100-year lease with Inspired Communities of Florida to develop a mixed use complex that would be the first construction project at Maritime Park in more than a decade.
Reverb by Hard Rock had been slated to break ground this year at the Community Maritime Park and open in 2029, according to a company news release. The Dawson Company and Corporate Contractors Inc. are also listed as having a stake with Inspired Communities of Florida in the development.
Developers had proposed Reverb by Hard Rock as a 12-story, 147-room hotel designed to include technology-enhanced rooms, a full-service restaurant, rooftop bar, lobby bar and lounge, quick service restaurant and fitness center. A three-level parking deck had also been proposed.
A recent Community Redevelopment Agency decision to reject an estimated $58 million tax rebate for the Reverb by Hard Rock hotel project, along with the same developer’s plans for Rhythm Lofts apartments at the same site, could ultimately end up altering the plans and delaying construction.
The developers have warned that without the requested rebate only a mid-rise single-use hotel building can be built at the site.
Tristan Hotel and an East Garden District revitalization
In 2024, five years after the East Garden District developers announced they would build a “place-making” boutique hotel at the corner of Jefferson and Chase streets, construction began on a 122-room full-service hotel called Hotel Tristan.
Project mastermind Chad Henderson told the News Journal early on in the planning process that he’d bought property in the area that would provide him an opportunity to create what he called the East Garden District. Along with the hotel, Henderson envisions shops, restaurants and other residential housing locating along Jefferson Street between Garden and Chase streets.
Original plans from way back in 2019 also called for developers to renovate existing buildings surrounding the popular Perfect Plain Brewing Co. to create space for new restaurants and shops. The vision is coming to life with additions like sister venue The Well, the relocation of Union Public House to the block and the recent opening of late night snack purveyor Insomnia Cookies.
Henderson and Catalyst Real Estate are working alongside the Thrash Group, a real estate development company, and The 1559 Collective, a group of Pensacola investors, in partnership with Tandem Hospitality Group, according to a company press release.
Tempo by Hilton going in where New World Landing once stood
The old New World Landing hotel has been torn down and a six story, 184-room Tempo by Hilton is set to replace it at 600 South Palafox St. 3H Group Hotels, based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is overseeing the development.
Plans for the structure have been scaled back twice since the hotel was originally proposed in 2023. The building height has been dropped from nearly 100 feet in the original plan to 88 feet, and amended plans include putting a meeting space, dining area and bar on the first floor and a pool on the second.
Homewood Suites on East Gregory Street
Construction has gotten underway at 801 East Gregory St., where Mississippi-based Kerioth Corporation is building a six-story, 132-room Homewood Suites by Hilton hotel.
The new hotel will offer views of Pensacola Bay and feature a pool along with an outdoor grill area and lawn. As part of the project developers will build 21 parking spaces on the public right-of-ways on 13th Avenue and De Leon Street in addition to more than 100 spaces in a parking lot on the property.
The property where the Homewood Suites by Hilton is being constructed was purchased in 2020 for $2.5 million and final design work on the building was completed in 2023. Construction got underway last year.
What else is happening on Escambia’s hotel scene?
While new construction is planned or underway, the boutique 45-room hotel at 200 N. Palafox formerly known as Sole Inn and Suites is undergoing a major renovation and is expected to re-open this summer as Hotel Margot.
Sole Inn and Suites was opened in the 2007-08 time period by Gulf Breeze Hotel Group, which designed the building that had previously housed the Harbor Inn, to resemble what Pensapedia described as a “1950s retro-modern” style.
The Tandem Hospitality Group and 1559 Collective are among the groups managing the renovation project, which on the Visit Pensacola website promises “a place designed for connection to the local rhythm while enjoying a refined, boutique retreat.”
A couple miles west of the city limits, a Louisiana company known as Godiva Development LLC is planning a 32-unit, multi-story hotel on Gulf Beach Highway across from Ascension Sacred Heart Health Care Center at Perdido.
Plans are also in the works for the development of at least one hotel, and possibly two, out on Perdido Key.
Rich Chism, the managing partner of Heron Hotels LLC out of Hixon, Tennessee, has submitted plans to construct a 17-story hotel on vacant land at 14125 Perdido Key Drive. If built, the 200-foot tall, 271 room structure would be the only hotel on the island.
Chism said the project is “just in the planning stage” at this time and he’s still looking for financing.
If plans for a development known as Valencia Square are brought to fruition, that mixed use development project would also bring a hotel to Perdido Key, and just down the road from the Chism project.
Valencia Square, whose developers have remained silent since 2024, called for construction of multiple restaurants, the hotel, office space, single-family townhomes and a multi-family condominium across 50 acres of land at 13585 Perdido Key Drive.
Has a shortage of hotel rooms hurt Escambia tourism?
Tourism in Escambia County has shown modest increases, Gislason said, but lags behind its nearby “peer” counties of Okaloosa, Walton, Bay and Baldwin County, Aalabama.
“Escambia does not currently have the same level of tourism product in terms of hotel room inventory as some of those counties, particularly Okaloosa and Bay,” the HAAS executive director said. “In addition, Escambia has less shoreline than those destinations, which affects the scale and concentration of beachfront tourism.”
Looking at its eastern neighbors, Bay County had the highest level of visitor spending at approximately $3.4 billion in 2025, followed by Okaloosa County at $3.2 billion. Escambia County’s visitor spending was estimated at $1.4 billion in 2025.
Gislason said while adding hotel rooms in the downtown market will certainly assist Pensacola and Escambia County in bringing in visitors, she said she’s “more than excited” about proposals to bring in some type of convention or conference center.
Tourism activity may strengthen as the Bay Center renovation is completed and additional hotels come online, increasing the community’s capacity to attract and accommodate visitors.
Conventional wisdom states that a convention center and multi-use space could make the Bay Center a true civic center complex.
“A conference center, something like they have in (Walton County’s) Sandestin, in Pensacola, would have a lot of benefits,” she said. “It could really boost our ability to host events.”
Pensacola International Airport annually serves more passengers than the airports in Okaloosa and Bay counties with about half of its customer base coming to town to do business, Gislason said. This can have a beneficial impact as the city diversifies its entertainment perspectives and expands its lodging industry.
“One major point of pride for Pensacola is air traffic,” she said.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola plans for hundreds of new hotel rooms. How many is too many?
Reporting by Tom McLaughlin, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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