107 New Pen Air Jobs Coming Downtown Now that one of the most financially stable credit

unions in the country has chosen downtown Pensacola as the location to consolidate and grow several of its system wide functions, lets consider the impact of that impendent entry into downtown. Pen Air will be purchasing the historic five storyThiesen Building for several millions dollars. That rapidly growing credit union will also be making significant improvements and renovations to the 38,000 square foot building at 40 Palafox Place over the next few months to accommodate the 107 employees that will ultimately inhabit it. The planned improvements will likely total more than seven figures as well. All of these investments will be fully on the tax rolls with no ad valorem abatements. Approximately fifty of the new downtown employees at Pen Airs new building will be transfers of existing employees from other Pen Air locations throughout their system. The remainder of the positions (approximately 57 more) that Pen Air has promised to add in that location during the next twenty four months will be new hires. The projected average annual compensation for all 107 Pen Air positions in the Thiesen Building will be slightly more than $48,000 per year. This average annual salary translates into a projected annual payroll for this new location of slightly more than $5 million per year. The DIB knows that downtown employees spend on average 29% of their household discretionary income on goods and services found within walking distance from where they work. Almost half of all such spending is usually on food and beverage. If these models hold true for the new and relocated Pen Air positions, downtown businesses within about a six to eight block radius of 40 Palafox Place should share in an additional $800,000+ of spending by downtown employees each year when the Pen Air operation in the Historic Thiesen Building is fully staffed and operational. Without any economic development multipliers added, its not hard to see how these additional expenditures could create a need for even more employment at some of the existing downtown businesses. Additionally, there will be even more people using the downtown sidewalks as customers, vendors, and employees of Pen Air each day. All of these strolling pedestrians will also be exposed to the other offerings and businesses found in Downtown Pensacola each and every time they visit Pen Air or just come to work. Pen Air, as a corporate citizen, will likely become aneven more active part of the downtown community when they have such a large physical and employment presence. It should not be surprising that Pen Air Federal Credit Union has experienced tremendous growth throughout Northwest Florida and South Alabama during the last few years and currently has a regional workforce of more than 300. Pen Air has amassed assets in excess of $1 billion and is in the top 4% of strongest financial institutions in the nation.

There is currently a small Pen Air Federal Credit Union branch location at 305 W. Gregory Street in the downtown. When Pen Air opens its new downtown office location later this year, there will beeighteen financial institutions with a physical storefront presence in the downtown. This particular sector of the downtown workforce was hit hard by the Great Recession and its lingering effects. The addition of Pen Air, and its 107 new jobs, not only wipes out the remaining losses from 2008 and 2009 in this employment sector, but puts the category back into the position it enjoyed during the boom year of 2005. The expansion of Pen Air Federal Credit Union in Downtown Pensacola will only help accelerate the pace of growth and new activity now being enjoyed. Good new jobs will be created and filled. Commerce will be further enhanced. An iconic historic buildingwill be restored and fully reused in the process. Downtown and Pensacola in general will be the beneficiaries of this wise decision for years to come. Franklin D. Kimbrough Pensacola Downtown Improvement Board