By Mayor Mark Sheldon
I hope 2023 finds everyone happy, healthy, and on track for a prosperous and successful year!
Florida is one of the fastest-growing states in the U.S., and Panama City Beach is not immune to that growth. As we enter the new year, I wanted to let you know about a few things going on in the City. We are diligently moving forward with many infrastructure projects to accommodate the rapid growth we continue to experience.
Some of these projects are the 17 lane miles of street resurfacing, construction of a new fire station, development of the next 1.44-mile segment of Gayle’s Trails, and numerous new amenities at our parks.
The City is also seeing extensive private development, like the new hospital coming on State Road 79, another beach ER opening on the east end, new hotels, a large-scale winery, and a major golf attraction.
You cannot look around this City and not see our progress. We have come a long way over the last few years, and we won’t let up on our plans for the future in order to guarantee a continued great quality of life for our residents.
Let’s look at some of our recent accomplishments.
After 50 years without one, Panama City Beach finally has a strategic plan and a business plan with both long- and short-term goals which we evaluate yearly. The strategic plan, adopted in 2020, was needed as a roadmap for the future. Our 2021-2026 Strategic Plan keeps us on track in pursuing our priorities and guides the beach in our vision to be a safe, family-friendly, vibrant community that values residents, businesses, and visitors, supports cultural and economic diversity, and maintains outstanding quality of life.
As part of the strategic planning process, residents reaffirmed what we already knew to be our number one challenge and priority: a better, multi-modal transportation system is desperately needed to enhance mobility.
This year, you will see how much is going on to improve traffic flow as we continue construction and expansion going east in the Front Beach Road Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) from Arnold Road to Lullwater to Hills to Lantana. This project, with multiple segments, adds sidewalks and bicycle and tram lanes to expand transportation options.
Also, Panama City Beach Parkway will be expanded to six lanes this year from east of State Road 79, at the entrance to Frank Brown Park, all the way to Nautilus, and then from Nautilus to Richard Jackson Boulevard. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) understands the main east/west thoroughfare through the City requires additional capacity to handle the traffic flow.
FDOT is also resurfacing Hutchison Boulevard, adding ADA-compliant sidewalks on the south side, and making other improvements up State Road 79.
Additionally, the City is expanding sidewalks on Hills and Alf Coleman, raising Alf Coleman, and making improvements to many connector roads that take residents from PCB Parkway to Front Beach Road.
As private developers invest in our community, we want to make sure they are good stewards of the environment and are preserving green space for our residents to enjoy. The City has added a requirement that subdivisions reserve space in their developments for neighborhood parks. We cannot stop development, especially in light of the increased demand for housing here, but we can put stipulations in place for responsible growth.
Over the course of the last two years, we have been successful in engaging residents through our communications efforts. Open communication is paramount to a thriving city. Through our various social media pages and our website, we reach hundreds of thousands of people each year. Our City Facebook page, which has 117,000 followers, is where you can watch Council meetings, learn about upcoming events, be alerted to road construction projects, receive infrastructure updates, and participate in community contests.
It is my belief that transparency builds trust and creates public buy-in. We always want to convey accurate and timely information to you, our residents, businesses, and visitors, as community stakeholders.
In addition, anyone – regardless of where they live – can come to our council meetings and speak. Anyone can bring their concerns to PCB elected officials.
We know that we already have a great quality of life here on the world’s most beautiful beaches, but we continue to work to make it better. We have installed odor control devices at our wastewater treatment plant and we are anticipating adding more amenities to our parks, including a skatepark, six pickleball courts, new basketball courts, a BMX park, and more.
We continue adding public art around town through our SeeLife program. We have a contract for a revamp of the Russell-Fields City Pier, considered our main street. And we are getting rid of an eyesore on the beach with the Lullwater outfall project which will reduce beach erosion and the potential of flooding around Lullwater Lake.
There is a lot going on and the future is very bright for Panama City Beach. As always, I appreciate your support of our City. Together, we can accomplish much. Thank you.
