It is to bad, this deal seems like it is on it's way out. I think the City and Hixardt are a little to overconfident on what will happen. A six story 6 million dollar building may not be the best idea right now. Why not put a proposal together for the new tech park. I'm sure a building could be designed to be expanded as the Hixardt grows. I think getting a solid tenant in the tech park would be the first step to attracting more quality companies to Pensacola. I hope the City and Hixardt can come to a solution and move forward.
A highly touted deal between the City of Pensacola and Hixardt Technologies that calls for a $6 million, five-story building downtown and 100 high-tech jobs has hit a major roadblock.
In a June 27 letter to Hixardt CEO Michael Hicks, City Councilman Brian Spencer says a letter of intent from Beach Community Bank "does not adequately demonstrate" that Hixardt has sufficient funding to proceed with the project.
As a result, Spencer, who is chairman of the city's Community Redevelopment Agency, has offered Hicks "in the spirit of cooperation ... an informal extension" of the deadline to secure funding until July 16.
Hixardt is a provider of information technology support services and has several major local and national private and governmental clients. Founded in 2001, the company has about 20 employees.
Hicks missed a previous March deadline to secure funding. In April, the CRA granted him an extension till June 30.
Reached at his office on Monday, Hicks, 46, a former Navy pilot, had little to say.
"Basically Hixardt and the city are still working on that, and we will meet on July 16 to discuss," he said.
The big hurdle for Hicks appears to be Beach Bank's demand the city become a co-guarantor of the $6 million construction loan to Hixardt.
The condition that the city become a co-guarantor of the loan was never part of the original deal between the city and Hixardt, CRA Administrator Ryan Winterberg-Lipp said.
Winterberg-Lipp said the July 16 meeting agenda will include discussion of still another extension for Hicks to arrange financing and the question of Beach's demand for the city to back its proposed construction loan to Hixardt.
"It's a complicated deal," Winterberg-Lipp said. "And the CRA may want to give them additional time to work things out."
Pensacola City Councilman Larry Johnson said the deal "has hit one snag after another."
"I'm disappointed and hope it will get back on track," Johnson said. "But it would be very hard for me as a councilman to accept the city being a guarantor to Hixardt."
At the core of the city's contract with Hixardt is the exchange of a 0.66-acre piece of property on Government Street, currently being used as a parking lot, that lies adjacent to Hicks' existing Intendencia headquarters.
Under the agreement with Hixardt, the CRA will hold a forgivable $750,000 mortgage against the property's assessed value of $750,000.
That loan would be forgiven under the following terms: 10 percent at the start of construction; 10 percent when a certificate of occupancy is obtained; and 20 percent for each "sustainable and measurable" 25 jobs, expected to pay in the range of $45,000-plus.
Hixardt would have five years to reach the 100-job plateau, according to the original agreement with the city.
Beach Senior Vice President Brian Bell wrote to CRA members in late June the bank also wants an appraisal of the city's property that is acceptable to the bank.
Bell could not be reached for comment Monday, and the letter did not go into further details.
The Hixardt land exchange was one of the first deals forged by Mayor Ashton Hayward who has pledged to work closely with the private sector to create jobs and find viable uses for surplus city property.
Hayward was out of the country and could not be reached for comment Monday. Spencer did not return calls.
If the loan is secured and construction gets under way, Hixardt is expected to occupy four stories of the five-story building.
The fifth floor potentially could be leased to a separate tenant, and the ground-floor possibly could include small retail uses, Hicks has said.
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