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Escambia To Begin Purchase Negotiations With D.R. Horton For OLF-8
April 7, 2023
The Escambia County Commission has voted to negotiations with homebuilder D.R. Horton to purchase the OLF-8 property on Nine Mile Road for $42 million.
Commissioners approved taking that next step by a 5-0 vote during a meeting Thursday night .
D.R. Horton, which describes itself as “America’s largest homebuilder”, has teamed with commercial developer Stirling, a nearly 50-year old firm with $2.73 billion in development across eight southern states to create a plan for OLF-8.
The plan includes a mix of retail, restaurants, office space, townhomes, apartments and light industrial around a town center.
Commission Lumon May expressed concerns that the plan does not contain enough commercial development in the plan.
“You can always find land to build a school and residential,” May said. “There is no more industrial or commercial property close to Nine Mile Road. It is at the end; we have built out. We have to be very conscious that this (OLF-8) is the last opportunity for light industry in Escambia County. It is the best opportunity for commercial property.”
The commission will hold a special meeting on negotiations, including price and the development plans.
Pictured: D.R. Horton’s conceptual plan for OLF-8 as presented to the Escambia County Commission on Thursday.
Comments
30 Responses to “Escambia To Begin Purchase Negotiations With D.R. Horton For OLF-8”
Brianh64.
I read all the articles that I was able to find back before Navy Federal purchased the land I talked to many people” in the loop” including Brian Bell, Debbie Calder, Steven Barry Pam, Florida Extension Service. And many of the farmer friends and 4Hers. against the sale
kids1. look at what Money OLF is bringing in look at all the misdirected, deception and outright lies by those that in the development world were feeding everyone in papers that were proved when from the clear blue skies came out after LBC was done deal when ” lo and behold OLF8 was suddenly available and Navy Federal now needed more land. look at the 1/2 truths that were told to the young 4Hers who were like mushrooms “Fed mauure and and kept in tthe dark”!
2.
2. Look at what 9 mile road land is selling
3. Look at what the offer price was before ESC county put some hurricane relief money with the county offer. IIt was way too low .ESC took the kids for an expensive ride and you adults didn’t seem to care what you did to get your greedy hands on LBC
4.I HOPE YOU WASH YOUR HANDS OFTEN CAUSE THE DIRT IS STILL THERE
i stand behind every word ansd there are many prior 4Hers that feel the same.
I don’t always see eye with Commissioner May but here he is hitting the nail on the head. The OLF8 land swap deal was initially sold to the public as a way to gain a sizable piece of land to attract industry that create lost high paying JOBS. How can our representatives allow us lo fritter away what is probably the last strategically located property this size in the area. Dollars can’t recover that!
In addition, it is ironic that we are congratulating ourselves for bringing to justice a contractor involved in defrauding citizens meanwhile handing over this critical job creating property to a buyer who is involved in leaving property owners in multiple Escambia County Developments holding the bag for promised but unfulfilled projects.
Why aren’t the commissioners instead working on a tax refund created by the substantially elevated property values over these past few years? Sad, Sad.
Dave Lamb, I would suggest you research a bit about the 4 H sale to Navy Federal. Last I recall, it was the youth of 4 H that agreed to the sale. Here’s a link to the article: http://www.northescambia.com/2012/02/4-h-kids-to-decide-3-6-million-sale-of-langley-bell-to-navy-federal
It appears that 5 streets in their plan exit onto Frank Reeder including all the industrial. Only 3 exit to 9 Mile? How is Frank Reeder supposed to handle that? The intersection at Frank Reeder and Beulah Rd is already a deathtrap.
Why don’t they run a dedicated road for the industrial to 9 Mile? Or why don’t they run it through their own development instead of burdening those of us on Frank Reeder who didn’t ask for any of this?
This is the home builder that has a class action lawsuit against them in Louisiana for not building homes to code and now said homes are falling apart literally. This is truly a mistake, and some commissioner/s are definitely profiting off this. I know progress goes on and we must grow or become stagnate but this is a terrible decision.
Thanks to Bonnie and Fred for your comments. I was afraid of being the only ESC native that could see what a group of grown adults did to 4Hers inthe beginning for greed.
Someone has sold their soul. I hope you are proud of yourselves for not listening to what the taxpayers and residents told you what they wanted.
All I have to say is Langley Bell would turn over in his grave if he saw what our county leaders are doing with his donated beloved 4-H campus and neighboring lands on Nine Mile Road…what some view it ” progress ” others view it as ” paving paradise and putting up a parking lot”
Typical horrible management by Escambia county again.
Originally the Beulah out lying field OLF8 was US gov. property so the county decided that they needed it, they made a deal to buy it but the Navy said only if a replacement is provided too, so the county had to buy and construct a replacement site in Santa Rosa co. We paid above market price for both locations not to mention the cost of construction of the replacement. Now they are selling OLF8 for too little and with poor planning, forethought, and density requirements. Houses crammed together on 1/8 acre lots, one entrance off Nine mi. no provision for what could be a beautiful county park open to all. D.R. Horton will maximize profits by building as much as county regulations allow.
If we want better we need better representation, we had that opportunity with charter government but that got shot down due to fear that the public and the county would loose control which charter could do just the opposite by adding more representation. Charter government can be what ever we want it to be its not some evil thing that takes away our rights it can actually give us more control.
Vote them out and get charter government back on the ballot.
Happy Easter!
Sssooo…. over 600 home cheaply built, over priced homes and just a few rinky dink retail shops? I think way better can be done than this. JMO
Well there went a chance to build a huge area full.of distribution centers that pay way above avg and could have employed thousands. As for that plan that was displayed on this site. Is a horrible plan, MAIN ISSUE is you need a 4 lane road to down the center. BETTER BE A #%^&ING COSTCO going in there. We don’t need another publix.
Why is THE HEAD even involved in this? He acts like $37,000,000 is big. Hey BERGULP, the county budget this last year was $450,000,000……
There goes the neighborhood.
The only thing worse than the destruction of Beulah is hearing the commissioners tell us how smart they are.
Did anyone think it would happen any other way? It’ll just be more and more of a nightmare full of cheaply built, but expensive houses and strip malls, drainage issues, infrastructure issues, schooling issues and more nightmare traffic. They don’t have the best interests of Escambia county at heart. They obviously don’t listen to their constituents. People just keep voting the same ones in over and over. Vote them out.
@ BigJohn yep, and you know, once they finish packing out 9 mile road area, they will come for us in Cantonment and Molino.
As with all of Escambia, including Barry, it is taxation without representation. I urge all to vote these guys out! They do not do what the voters want but what they want! Not what the public wants.Yet, they are expected to represent us, what a joke.
WELL ALL I CAN SAY , DON’T LOOK FOR ANY OF THAT MONEY BEING USED IN THE NORTH END OR ANY PLACE IN THE COUNTY . WATCH WHAT I SAY, THAT I TOLD YOU IT WOULD HAPPEN !!!!!!!!
Ask yourself: why our county commissioners (Jeff Bergosh primarily) and D.R. Horton the only parties to this agreement who are happy about it? We need to have 15 commissioners here, not a paltry 5. Unfortunately, we can do nothing, Tallahassee controls everything and we don’t have anyone worth a crap representing our interests there either. We’re screwed.
Looks like DR HORTON will be getting the gold mine, and the residents and taxpayers will be only getting the shaft.
Problem is that this county is owned and run primarily by people who live south of Highway 98.
Check the commissioners personal bank account for large deposits.
Capitalism Consumes the Country Life: An American Tragedy
So, we went from NFCU can’t use the OLF for their expansion so 4H is given the boot. Now that the county “owns” OLF it’s sold to a third-rate contractor so the county commissioners can pat themselves on the back and say “see how much money we made for you” just don’t worry about the infrastructure cost, increased traffic in an already nightmare traffic area, increased demand on first responders etc. etc. Yup don’t look over there, pay attention to this shiny thing over here.
Its a huge DR Horton housing development with a strip mall here and there. This is a lose/lose situation. DR Horton builds everything as cheap as possible.
Jeff Bergosh needs to be INVESTAGTED. DR HORTON are padding his pockets. DR Horton was just FINED around the corner from this site for clay in the wet lands and other violations. VOTE THEM ALL OUT.
I knew this was going to happen from the get go! It means more kickback money in the commissioners pockets from DR Horton! Come election time I will be voting these people out! Beulah is being ruined by these commissioners!
We are the Escambia County Commissioners and we are here to improve the heck out of your peaceful little community.
Do all the money grabbers in this country have to turn every peaceful place into an ant hill?
Well, there goes the neighborhood!
Many people will tell you that they will never buy another home from them. I think you need to keep the money in the county and get with one or two of the local custom home builders/developers to come up with a win-win plan. Not D.R. Horton.
please not DRHorton
the “quality” of home they build is well known…