Pensacola Attorneys for Business Litigation and Dispute Resolution

Pensacola is the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, and the state’s westernmost city.

In 2019, the estimated population was 52,975. Pensacola is the most populous city in the Pensacola Metropolitan Area, which had a population of 502,629 in 2019. One of the most populous urban regions on the Gulf Coast is Pensacola.

Because it has been ruled by five different governments throughout its history: Spain (Castile), France, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the Confederate States of America, it is known as “The City of Five Flags.” Other nicknames include “Western Gate to the Sunshine State,” “America’s First Settlement,” “Emerald Coast,” “Red Snapper Capital of the World,” and “P-Cola” (because to the white sand of Florida’s panhandle beaches).

Pensacola Business Climate

One of the Best Business Climates in the Southeast is Pensacola!

Pensacola has had one of the best business climates in the Southeast since the 1700s, thanks to its role in trade and commerce! Major industries including aerospace and defense, innovative manufacturing, and professional services benefit from the stable economy and low cost of doing business.

Pensacola was been included in Forbes’ Top 100 cities for ease of doing business, according to Sperling’s Best Places (5.80 percent lower than the national average).

As Florida’s largest region along the Gulf Coast, Greater Pensacola’s economy creates new businesses while also drawing business and industry from all over the world. The region is home to more than 500 companies, a large manufacturing workforce, and seasoned entrepreneurs.

Business Costs are Reasonably Low

Land, labor, and capital are more affordable than in many other parts of the United States, which can’t match the area’s natural beauty and livability. In addition, FloridaWest works with expanding firms to reduce the cost of location or expansion on competitive projects in specific industries. Special financing may be provided to help infrastructure improvements or workforce training for large-scale projects that meet specified conditions.

In the 2020 Tax Foundation State Business Tax Climate Index, taxes are one of the most important factors. In the United States, Florida is ranked fourth. The Index compares states in five categories of business taxation. Taxes have an impact on company decisions, employment creation and retention, plant locations and expansions, competitiveness, and, most importantly, profitability. Greater Pensacola is a desirable location for business investment and growth due to its low corporate tax rate and lack of a personal state income tax.

Greater Pensacola’s economy is a generator of new firms and attracts business and industry from all over the world as Florida’s largest region along the Gulf Coast. More than 500 businesses, a robust manufacturing workforce, and seasoned entrepreneurs call the region home.

In recent years, these and other new and developing businesses have made significant investments in Northwest Florida:

• International Paper
• L-3 Communications
• Avalex Navy Federal Credit Union
• GE Wind Energy
• Ascend Performance Materials
• AppRiver
• Custom Control Solutions

Pensacola’s Progressive Laws

A progressive state business climate will keep the region as a magnet for existing and expanding businesses.

• NO state-level property tax assessed
• NO property tax on business inventory
• NO property tax on goods-in-transit for up to 180 days
• NO constitutionally mandated state personal income tax
• Machinery and equipment used by a new or expanding Florida business to manufacture, produce, or process tangible personal property for sale
• Labor, parts, and materials used in repairing and incorporating machinery and equipment
• Electricity used in the manufacturing process
• Certain boiler fuels (including natural gas) used in the manufacturing process
• Motion picture, made-for-television film, television series, commercial music videos, or sound recordings production firms based in Florida

Fast  Permitting

Businesses require consistency, predictability, and efficiency, and the Pensacola government knows this. Regulatory agencies and municipal governments in the state produce faster, less expensive, and more predictable approval processes for key economic development projects without sacrificing environmental requirements. The City of Pensacola holds a weekly one-stop development review meeting that is open to the public and does not need an application or fee. Do you need data on cost analysis that is specific to your company?

Medical Sector

The Sacred Heart Health System is a non-profit committed to heart healing.

• West Florida Medical Center
• Medical Center Baptist
• Gulf Breeze Medical Center is a medical facility located in Gulf Breeze, Florida (located in nearby Gulf Breeze)
• Andrews Institute for Advanced Study (Academy of Advanced Study) (located in nearby Gulf Breeze)
• The Santa Rosa Medical Center (located in nearby Milton)
• Pensacola Naval Hospital (for military members, dependents, and approved persons only)
• Only Selected Patients Only Specialty Hospital

Military Sector

The Blue Angels’ Delta Formation

As the city has been dubbed, “The Cradle of Naval Aviation.”

The United States Navy’s first naval air station, Naval Air Station Pensacola (NASP), was founded in 1914. Thousands of naval aviators have been trained there, including John H. Glenn, USMC, the first American to orbit the earth in 1962, and Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon in 1969. The Navy’s Flight Demonstration Squadron, the Blue Angels, is based in the area.

The Naval Air Station is home to the National Museum of Naval Aviation, which is open to the public. Hundreds of old Naval Aviation aircraft are cared for and displayed at the museum, which also preserves Naval Aviation history through exhibits, symposiums, IMAX films, and tours.

The Naval Technical Training Hub at Corry Station serves as both an annex to the main base and an Information Dominance hub. CWO3 Corry Station, Naval Hospital Pensacola is home to the Gary R. Schuetz Memorial Health Clinic, as well as the principal Navy Exchange and Defense Commissary Agency commissary facility for both Corry Station and NAS Pensacola. The Army National Guard’s B Troop 1-153 Cavalry, Bravo Company 146th Expeditionary Signal Battalion is based in Pensacola.

Tourism Sector

Pensacola hosts a multitude of annual festivals, events, historic tours, and sites. The Pensacola Seafood Festival and the Pensacola Crawfish Festival have been held in the city’s historic downtown for nearly 30 years. Every November, the Great Gulf Arts Festival takes place in Seville Square, attracting more than 200 regional and international artists. At the Children’s Art Festival, which is also held at Seville Square, local schoolchildren’s artwork is on display. Every February, Pensacon is a comic convention that gathers around 25,000 people from all over the world.

There are several walking tours of rebuilt 18th-century districts in Pensacola.

Pensacola is home to the Vietnam Veterans’ Wall South. Fort Barrancas is one of several historic Civil War military strongholds. Geronimo was imprisoned at Fort Pickens for a short time. Two more military attractions are the National Naval Aviation Museum and the Pensacola Lighthouse at NAS Pensacola.

The city’s convention and tourism bureau is run by the Greater Pensacola Chamber.

This essay focuses on the media sector in Escambia County, Florida.

Media and Entertainment Sector

The Gannett Company owns the Pensacola News Journal, which has offices on Romana Street in downtown and publishes the area’s principal daily newspaper. Inweekly is a weekly alternative newspaper.

Pensacola is home to WEAR-TV, an ABC affiliate that serves Pensacola, Navarre, Fort Walton Beach, and Mobile, as well as WSRE-TV, a local PBS member station owned by Pensacola State College. Other television stations in the market include WALA-TV, a Fox affiliate; WKRG, a CBS affiliate; and WPMI, an NBC affiliate, all of which are situated in Mobile. Cable service is provided across the city via Cox Communications and AT&T U-Verse. The NPR affiliate in the area is WUWF, which is situated at the University of West Florida. On the Pensacola Christian College campus, where WPCS (FM) is broadcast, the nationwide Rejoice Radio Network has a studio.

Pensacola Magazine, the city’s monthly glossy publication, and Northwest Florida’s Business Climate, the region’s only business magazine, are both published locally. The News Journal also publishes Home & Garden Weekly and Bella, a monthly focused to women.

Transportation and Logistics Sector

The majority of air traffic in Pensacola and northwest Florida is handled by Pensacola International Airport. Pensacola International Airport is the busiest in Northwest Florida and the second busiest in North Florida, behind only Jacksonville International Airport. [needs a reference] Pensacola International Airport is served by American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines, Silver Airways, Southwest Airlines, Boutique Airlines, Spirit Airlines, and United Airlines as of November 2019.

 Railroads

The Alabama and Florida Railroad was the first rail link between Pensacola and Montgomery, Alabama, and was built in 1861, just before the Civil War. During the war, the majority of the rails between Pensacola and the Alabama state line were decommissioned to make way for other railroad lines that were critically needed elsewhere in the Confederacy. The Louisville and Nashville Railroad purchased the railway from Louisville to Pensacola in 1880 after it was repaired in 1868. The Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad, which connects Pensacola with the rest of Florida, was completed in 1882 and stretches from Pensacola to Chattahoochee. This line was also purchased by the L&N.

The Frisco Railroad had purchased a number of minor lines going north from Pensacola to Kimbrough, Alabama, in 1928, giving it access to the Pensacola port.

Retired Frisco steam engine 1355 was handed to the city thirty years later and now stands in the Garden Street median at the location of the now-demolished Frisco passenger station.

Frisco passenger service to Pensacola ended in 1955 with the entrance of Amtrak, while L&N passenger service, including the streamlined Gulf Wind, ended in 1971 with the arrival of Amtrak. However, from early 1993 through August 2005, the Amtrak Sunset Limited served Pensacola, but service east of New Orleans to Jacksonville and Orlando was discontinued due to CSX rail line damage during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

In the twenty-first century, L&N descendant CSX, as well as Frisco successor Alabama and Gulf Coast Railway, a short line, provide freight service to and from Pensacola. On June 1, 2019, the newly formed Florida Gulf & Atlantic Railroad, based in Tallahassee, bought the CSX main line from Pensacola to Baldwin, Florida, near Jacksonville, making it the Panhandle’s only east–west freight mover. Amtrak claimed that passenger service to the Panhandle had a “near-zero possibility” of being reintroduced in a mid-2019 news report on the reconstructed route. Pensacola and Tallahassee, Florida’s two largest cities, do not have passenger train service.

Employers of Significant Size

Navy Federal Credit Union is a credit union that serves the Navy.

• Baptist Health Care Services
• Sacred Heart Health Systems is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the health of
• Gulf Power Corporation
• Healthcare in West Florida.
• Ascend Performance Materials is a company that specializes in high-performance materials.
• Alorica (Alorica) (fka West Corporation)
• Innisfree
• Medical Center of Santa Rosa
• Medical Center 500 Clinic

These and other new and expanding firms have invested millions of dollars in Northwest Florida over the last five years:

• GE Wind Energy
• Ascend Performance Materials
• AppRiver
• Custom Control Solutions
• International Paper
• L-3 Communications
• Avalex
• Navy Federal Credit Union

Personal incomes Demographic Economics

The median household income in the city was $34,779, while the median family income was $42,868. The median income for men was $32,258 while the median income for women was $23,582. In the year 2011, The per capita income in the city was $30,556. Poor people made up about 12.7 percent of families and 16.3 percent of the population, with 26.2 percent of those under the age of 18 and 9.2 percent of those 65 and older falling into this category.

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