The Florida Legislature appears set to back Pensacola’s effort to redevelop the old Baptist Hospital property with $5 million.

Florida House and Senate committees backed their version of the state’s budget plans — $115.5 billion on the House side and $115.9 billion on the Senate side — and included in the Senate version was $5 million for “Live Local Pensacola” the name of the city effort to acquire and demolish the old Baptist Hospital property.

The city’s working plan is to clear the property and find a developer who can transform the campus into a new mixed-income community with all levels of affordable housing.

Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves’ funding plan to demolish the old hospital in a single year included at least $5 million from the Florida Legislature.

Also included in the Senate version was $2.2 million for funding for Bay Bluffs Park and $1 million for a terminal expansion at the Pensacola International Airport.

The House version of the budget contained $750,000 for funding for the airport.

Reeves thanks Sen. Doug Broxson for the inclusion of the projects in the Senate version of the budget, which was published on Friday.

“This is just the first step in seeing if these projects end up getting funded,” Reeves said. “They have dollar amounts tied to them, but there’s a lot more work yet to come.”

The lack of inclusion of the Baptist Hospital project in the House version of the budget comes after Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, said he couldn’t move the project forward because the city had not committed to using the dollars if the state allocated them.

The issue has strained the working relationship between the mayor and Andrade, whose district contains the entire city limits of Pensacola except for the new Baptist Hospital campus on Brent Lane.

Andrade’s view had not changed when he spoke to the News Journal in a text message on Wednesday.

“It shouldn’t have been a surprise I didn’t put money in my budget for it,” Andrade said. “The city didn’t do what I needed them to do to justify putting it into my spreadsheet. I did put money in for the airport because they committed to using it.”

That doesn’t mean Andrade is not supporting the project, however, as the budget is far from final.

Andrade said he still plans to support the project when the House and Senate versions of the budget get to a conference to unify the two spending plans.

“So long as I have the funds, my plan is to match (the Senate’s version) at $5 million when I go into conference negotiations,” Andrade said.

If the funds are approved and survive Gov. Ron DeSantis’ line-item veto, the city will have won a large portion of the $16.4 million it says it needs to accept the property from Baptist Hospital.

Last week, Reeves announced his full funding plan for acquiring the property. It would still require Baptist Health Care to contribute $3 million and Escambia County to contribute $2 million. The Pensacola City Council will vote next week to pledge $1 million to the project.

Proposed funding breakdown:

• Pensacola: $1 million
• Other grants: Up to $5 million for commercial property
• Escambia County: $2 million
• Baptist Health Care: $3 million
• Sale of land to affordable housing developer Paces Foundation: $2.9 million
• Florida: Between $5 million and $8 million
• Total: $13.9 million to $16.9 million