Pensacola is suing Joe Patti’s Seaford over access to its property to complete a $7.8 million stormwater project that is supposed to improve flooding for 1,688 properties in the city.
Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves took the unusual step of announcing the lawsuit had been filed in his weekly press conference on Oct. 28 because he wanted to make clear he wasn’t adverse to the lawsuit and the city was filing the suit as a last resort.
“Everybody knows how important Joe Patti’s is to our community,” Reeves said. “And certainly I can speak for this administration, and the previous administration, by saying I think that’s why we’ve spent three years (in talks) is for that exact reason. We spent three years trying to find some other solution. We are willing to pull this back if we can find that solution.”
The News Journal reached out to attorneys for Patti’s family, but no one was immediately available for comment.
The lawsuit is asking for a judge to grant the city access to an easement it says it is legally entitled to on the Joe Patti’s property to install an 84-inch drainage pipe for a stormwater project that has been under construction for the last year.
Pensacola filed the lawsuit against Joe Patti’s Seafood Company and the Frank Patti Revocable Trust in Escambia County Circuit Court on Oct. 24.
The city said in its lawsuit that an unused part of Gimble Street was signed over to Joe Patti’s in 1975 in a process known as vacating a street. Vacating the street required passing an ordinance, and the 1975 ordinance notes that the city reserved for itself “an easement for the purpose of locating and maintaining storm sewers and other public utilities” on the former street.
The city said in the lawsuit that an existing city-owned 54-inch stormwater pipe already exists underground through the easement.
The Gimble Street easement runs just a few feet in front of the front door of the Joe Patti’s Seafood building, so it would require some pedestrian pathways through the construction zone to be installed while the work would be done on the property.
The Joe Patti’s property is split into two parcels and the dividing line is the former center line of the vacated Gimble Street. Joe Patti’s Seafood Company owns the property south of the line, and the Frank Patti Revocable Trust owns the property—which includes most of the parking lot—north of the line.
The complaint alleges that the city, Joe Patti’s Seafood Company, and members of the Patti family should “explore feasible outfall alternatives” that would not involve the Gimble Street easement.
“Regrettably, defendants have rejected the city’s project proposals, along with all of the city’s proposed accommodations and alternatives,” the city’s complaint said.
Reeves said that the city has been in talks for three years to find an alternate path through the property that wouldn’t cause as much disruption to the business, but there hasn’t been any movement.
“We believe that there’s an alternative solution that, again, has several (Patti) family members that are involved, where we can have a (new) easement that just kind of goes down B Street and doesn’t need to go into the parking lot,” Reeves said.
Reeves said that the alternative proposal is in the hands of the Patti family, but there’s been no agreement signed, and the city could no longer hold off on filing a legal action.
The stormwater project aimed at improving flooding in more than 500 acres on the city’s westside and began earlier this year.
The project calls for a new drainage system to be installed along Main Street from C Street to A Street and drainage systems along B Street from Garden Street south to Gimble Street at Joe Patti’s Seafood. The work on B Street will also include adding sidewalks to both sides of the street.
The project is the first phase of a larger $16 million plan to address flooding in the area.
Reeves mentioned during a July 2024 press conference after he was asked about residents’ complaints of flooding on Garden Street that the city was working on a large project that would address those issues, but it was “tangled up” in easement issues near Joe Patti’s.
A few months later, the project went out to bid, and a contract was approved by the City Council in November 2024.
When Reeves was asked why work had begun on a project while the issue wasn’t resolved, Reeves said the city moved forward because it believes it has a legal easement on the former Gimble Street.
Reeves also said work on the project isn’t at risk of stopping at this point because the city has filed the legal action, but if it had waited until next year, then that may have become a risk.
“We do have stormwater relief for 5,000 (residents),” Reeves said. “Ten percent of our city is going to get stormwater relief from this project. It’s something that we can’t sit on for another year or two years, given where we’re at.”
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola sues Joe Patti’s Seafood over property access for stormwater project
Reporting by Jim Little, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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