CITY SPOTLIGHT
A completed portion of the Front Beach Road Community Redevelopment Area.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Paving the Path Forward Strategic direction guides Panama City Beach’s growth by Debbie Ingram Ward City of Panama City Beach
T
he young City of Panama City Beach was officially founded in 1970 – appropriately, in the summer. While many have called Panama City Beach home and visited the white sandy beaches for more than 50 years, the city proper as citizens know it today resulted from the merger of four beach communities: West Panama City Beach, Edgewater Gulf Beach, Long Beach and Panama City Beach. The city has experienced unprecedented growth over its 50-year history. In 1970, only 1,370 people lived inside the city limits. Today, though the city population hovers around 14,000 full-time residents, the busy summer months can see up to 100,000 visitors and several thousand commuters on any given day. This influx of people has created a demand for more and greater services, from transportation infrastructure, public safety and 16 QUALITY CITIES | SECOND QUARTER 2021
PANAMA CITY BEACH Bay County Pop. 14,047
utilities to parks, housing and commercial development. To keep up with the growth and as a means of prioritizing future expenditures and capital projects, the city established its first-ever strategic plan last year. Aligned with the inaugural citizen survey, the plan helped the city establish a business plan and short- and long-range financial plans. “Every community needs these plans to serve as a roadmap for the future,” said Mayor Mark Sheldon. “Now we look at our big projects to make sure they are meeting
our planning goals for transportation, economic development, public safety, quality of life, fiscal responsibility and attractive community. Everything has to fit.” Despite the pandemic, Panama City Beach is prospering, even without an ad valorem tax, he said. “We are the largest city in the state without a property tax,” Sheldon said. The strategic plan and the citizen survey revealed the city’s greatest challenge: the need for an improved transportation system. The city is moving forward with long-range improvements with the spring completion of segment two of Philip Griffitts Sr. Parkway and the construction of the next three segments of the Front Beach Road Community Redevelopment Area. “Front Beach Road is our main street,” said Sheldon. “We are not a typical city with a downtown area. We have this strip of commercial development and hotels/
PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY OF PANAMA CITY BEACH
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