Escambia County is being asked to approve a nearly $1 million contract to hire the same engineering firm that mistakenly “borrowed” a logo owned by a hotel on Pensacola Beach to design the new gateway project and toll area proposed for Pensacola Beach.
Escambia District 4 Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger, who represents Pensacola Beach, is pushing for the project to hide new tolling equipment, but the board chair isn’t convinced the gateway sign is needed.
Commissioners are being asked to authorize the county administrator to sign an agreement between the county and Jacobs Engineering Group for design services for the Pensacola Beach Gateway Improvements Project.
According to the county, Jacobs Engineering would receive a lump sum of $818,554 for base services and $160,810 for optional services.
The board is also being asked to transfer $1.1 million from District 4 Discretionary Funds to coffers for the project.
Besides tearing down the old toll booths and adding new tolling equipment, the new gateway will also include roadway improvements, new landscaping, a shared multi-use path and pavement improvements between the south end of the Bob Sikes Bridge and the north end of the Emerald Coast Utilities Authority water storage tanks.
Last year Hofberger scrapped plans to spend about $570,000 on new public dressing rooms at Casino Beach to help fund the new gateway project.
The total cost for the entire project is estimated to be as much as $7.5 million.
Pensacola Beach Gateway design confusion
In April, Escambia County was set to vote on a new $1.6 million architectural design for the proposed Gateway Arch that would house new toll-by-plate equipment and replace the old toll booths at the entrance to Pensacola Beach.
According to Hofberger, the new arch design was already decided at that time and was not open for public input, despite the original request for an engineer on the project requiring two public input meetings.
However, the county went back to the drawing board for the project’s design and designer after the Pensacola News Journal reported that Jacob’s Engineering, which was originally hired for the project, had mistakenly copied a logo on a website that belongs to Innisfree Hotels in the design.
Hofberger said the design firm thought the logo was government owned.
Escambia County had a “reconsideration of the design in an effort not to use trademarked materials.”
However, Hofberger said she liked the basic concept and still wanted to use it while “differentiating” it from the logo on the hotel-owned website.
In June, the commissioner and the county presented three different options for the public to vote on in selecting a new design for the arch.
Instead of a design that resembled the fin of a sailfish, the new options are designed to resemble waves in the Gulf with the words “Pensacola Beach” and different additions like a dolphin or beach ball.
Hofberger said the design idea was to “provide a theme and general guidelines so Jacob’s can do the professional design work.”
The public polls closed on June 11 with the county receiving close to 4,000 responses, Hofberger said.
Although Option 2 with a beach ball was ultimately the most popular, the decision is not final.
All three designs received a lot of negative feedback from the public, with some calling them tacky and garish.
Board chair Mike Kohler says he has not received much positive feedback on any of the options, and he thinks the entire project should be reconsidered.
“I believe that we should move forward with potentially a new design or a whole new gateway idea because I’m not even sure we need a gateway,” Kohler said.
The board will have an opportunity to discuss the project at its next meeting when the contract with Jacob’s Engineering is presented for a vote.
The item is on the agenda for a Special Board of County Commissioners meeting scheduled for Friday, June 20 at 9 a.m.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Public not won over by proposed Pensacola Beach Gateway design. Will Escambia approve it?
Reporting by Mollye Barrows, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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