What if it Would Have Been a Town Center Instead? Part II

What would happen to Pensacola and Escambia County if the NFCU expansion and associated $250 Million annual payroll and $3.4 Billion annual economic impact, started in an Escambia County Commerce Park called the Bell-Heritage Oaks Commerce Park, were suddenly taken away and replaced with a "town center instead?" How would that have worked out for Escambia County?

Imagine the gut-wrenching feeling you would have if you always, consistently, played the same 6 lottery numbers weekly-- and never won.  Year after year, decade after decade, if you stuck it out and played the same numbers, $2 Dollars a week, hoping against hope that one day you might win. Heck, forget about the $2.00 you were wasting all those years, you probably just rationalized the expenditure as "entertainment" because between the drawings you would spend hours just fantasizing and daydreaming about all the fun things you would do with the winnings if you won.. Those imaginary daydreams kept you so entertained, the $2.00 was like a guilty pleasure almost, like eating a dove bar or an expensive cup of coffee at Starbucks.  But think about this:  Imagine how sick you would feel, how absolutely and totally wrecked you would be inside (potentially suicidal possibly),- if you went on an out-of-town trip, forgot to buy your ticket before you left--AND  BOOM!!YOUR NUMBERS CAME IN WITHOUT YOU! Just imagine how that would feel!  How long would it take to get over that one?  Would you ever get over that?

I'm guessing that's kind of how our community would feel if there was some super high-tech way some naysayers had at their disposal, perhaps a time machine,  to go backwards in time to keep leaders in the early 2000's from making a commerce park in Beulah called Bell-Heritage Oaks Commerce Park.  You see, as I explained in part I, NFCU has grown exponentially in that park and beyond, on the way to providing 10,000 good-paying jobs here locally--yet there are still some in the community that believe that Navy Federal Credit Union coming to Escambia County was a terrible thing.  They wish it had never happened--some go so far as to say they think it wrecked their community.?!? Now, I have said publicly and on a very frequent basis I cannot have a rational conversation with anyone who believes this--as this opinion/outlook is simply so outlandishly myopic and psychopathic when juxtaposed with the MASSIVE, positive benefit NFCU brings to our region--that it is incomprehensible.

So just imagine if these naysayers could actually turn back the hands of time and sabotage what has since transpired in Pensacola over the last 16 years--making it so that  Navy Federal Credit Union never even made it here and instead grew their campus in Tidewater, Virginia (the runner-up location that eventually lost out to Pensacola). Imagine if Pensacola was not the recipient of the estimated $250 Million Annual payroll and $3.4 Billion in regional economic impact NFCU's eventual 10,000 jobs would bring to Escambia County and Pensacola? Imagine if you were a community leader with vision that worked to bring this tremendous outcome to Pensacola and you had to watch the naysayers blow it up and instead create a park, a retail mall, fast-food restaurants, cobblestone streets, an art district, an amphitheater, and a "town center" to the Bell-Heritage Oaks site--instead of bringing NFCU here in 2003?  Would that not drive you crazy???  Would you not do everything in


 your power to keep this from happening?

How about this one.....

Imagine if you were one of the 6,400 local residents currently working at NFCU and you woke up to find that your job was suddenly gone. Poof, Shazam, Abracadabra--gone.  Yep, because a few hundred people (give or take) didn't want your company here--it all went away.    So instead of working at the largest credit union in the world, making a much better than average area wage (complete with a nice, hefty yearly bonus each February)--you would suddenly be stuck in an alternate reality, working at a retail establishment located inside a "Town Center" that was constructed in the footprint of where NFCU was located in Pensacola.  Imagine if you, as one of the 6,400 NFCU employees  knew what you had and what you lost, like a scene out of Groundhog Day....what would you think of that?  Just imagine:  Instead of working at NFCU as a loan officer making a salary in the mid $40-50K range with tremendous fringe benefits, you could instead be working as a fast food employee in one of the retail establishments of the town center, with no benefits, no bonuses, and no full-time hours.  Or, you might be someone that works the counter in a nice art-gallery establishment in the town center, making $10 bucks an hour selling paintings 15 hours a week part-time.  Or, you might be a part-time county contractor employee of the parks department, working at the town-center's amphitheater at seasonal shows.  Or maybe you could work 20 hours at one town center retail job, and another 20 hours at a different one, in order to get 40 hours per week of minimum wage?  Who knows, you might even like that better, right?  Uh, I doubt it.  I highly doubt that.

Luckily, thank God, no human has the power to do this, to go back in time and steal this victory and replace it with something "they like better."  But I can tell you this much:  If there was a way, there are those that would do it--because they already have "theirs." And if that happened and everyone was fully cognizant of what was happening in real time and what was being stolen from Pensacola's future-----for the community and community leaders that worked so hard to bring this massive success here--it would feel worse than forgetting to buy your lottery ticket with your numbers that you knew would be a winner.  It would be more like finding out the winning lottery ticket that you actually purchased, with your numbers that you always played, had been stolen and ripped into pieces, never to be cashed by anyone.  That is exactly what it would feel like.  Think about that.