Hotel Indigo breaks ground in Panama City
PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) -
A big change is coming to downtown Panama City.
Hotel Indigo is expected to bring about 150 jobs to the area.
Not only will it help with employment, but it will also bring more people to this area.
Officials are hoping that will help local downtown businesses.
St. Joe Company president and C.E.O. Jorge Gonzalez said they’ve had this hotel project in the works for about five years.
“The downtown we’ve felt has always had a lot of potentials, the bones of the downtown are great, the potential is not just for downtown to be okay, but for it to be great, and we think a hotel is a good first step,” said Gonzalez.
Panama City has been designated as an “opportunity zone.”
This is a concept where a business will get to defer paying taxes when they develop in a town or city with opportunity zone designation.
“There’s a lot of opportunities here. It’s easy to turn a dollar into ten. Also, there are mutually reinforcing state, federal, and local policies,” said Shay Hawkins who was on the tax counsel for U.S. Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina, the office that came up with the idea for opportunity zones.
The St. Joe Company says it will take a year and nine months to build the 124 room hotel, which includes a “sky bar.”
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