BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – Bay County is receiving two state grants for infrastructure that will support our local military bases.
The money is coming from the Defense Reinvestment Grant Program. The Bay Defense Alliance is getting a little more than $90,000. It will be used to continue developing some of the alliance’s existing missions and formulate some new ones.
The Bay County government is getting $220,000 for a specific project. It will fund an area development plan for the Barefoot Palms property. That land is located just south of Naval Support Activity Panama City and the U.S. Coast Guard station off Thomas Drive.
Developers built the barefoot Palms townhouses in the early 2000s. However, the 2008 real estate crash forced the project into bankruptcy.
Bay County officials bought the land for $5 million, intending to sell it to the U.S. Navy to prevent civilian encroachment. The Navy could not afford the land so the county struck a compromise and traded the Navy for a piece of land on Thomas Drive and paid $30,000 to demolish the townhouses in May of this year.
This $200,000 grant will help with a plan to determine the future of the property.