In a sea of delays and financial worries, the Community Maritime Park is being thrown a life preserver.

The University of West Florida's cash-strapped Maritime Museum project was thrown a $13.4 million lifeline Wednesday by a for-profit development group whose executive director is former Gulf Breeze Mayor Ed Gray.

If the deal is approved Friday by the Community Maritime Park Associates' board, the funding would flow from a U.S. Treasury program called New Market Tax Credits.

The money is part of the federal stimulus package.

The museum always was envisioned to be the anchor for the park. But UWF has had a tough time raising enough money for the $20 million project in this economy, and it was looking as if the museum's construction was not in the foreseeable future.

"It is nothing short of a miracle," UWF President Judy Bense said. "Thank God for federal stimulus. It is saving our bacon at the university and it is saving our bacon at the Maritime Park. I am going to personally make a set of angel's wings for Ed Gray."

Gray was optimistic about securing the funding.

"There are a lot of details to be worked out, but there is a good likelihood that this could be a very big positive for the Maritime Park," he said.

If the CMPA gets the money, it would have to accelerate its construction timeline, "which is wonderful," said Lacey Collier, who chairs the CMPA board.

The developer is ready to break ground Sept. 17 on the $40 million park. But it may take longer than needed for the site to be made ready to build. The condition for receiving the money is that UWF would have to have a construction contract in hand and break ground by September 2011.

"The bottom line, if it all works out, we could start building tomorrow, and that is exciting," Collier said. "We will do whatever it takes. Instead of one bulldozer, we may have to get two. If we have to start digging ourselves with a shovel, we are not going to give away $18 million."

How it works

In mid-June, Gulf Breeze-based Capital Trust Agency Community Development Entity, LLC was awarded $75 million in tax credits under a special authorization under the 2009 stimulus bill. Capital Trust is a federally designated Community Development Entity, and is the only one in Florida to receive the 2009 tax credits.

Once the tax credits are awarded, they can be sold — or monetized — to banks or other investors for cash and applied against their tax liabilities.

Cash generated by the sale of the tax credits is plowed back into capital projects that have a direct benefit to communities and produce jobs.

Capital Trust has been applying for the tax credits since 2006, and each annual application has included the park as a potential recipient, Gray said.

"When we first put together the application in 2006, we've always felt that a very appropriate use of tax credits would be to assist getting the Maritime Park built, especially the museum," Gray said. "I've never made mention of this because we've never gotten an allocation of tax credits."

This year, however, federal stimulus dollars were pumped into the New Market Tax Credit program, and Capital Trust's application was approved.

While the authorization from Treasury is $75 million in tax credits, a complicated formula is applied to determine just how much cash sale of those credits can generate. In this case, Gray said a sale will produce between $13 million and $15 million.

Because the $75 million was designated for projects throughout Florida, Gray said Capital Trust cannot allocate all of it to just the Maritime Park.

As a result, Gray is looking for other federally designated CDEs willing to put up $35 million to Capital Trust's $35 million, for a $70 million total.

UWF's funding gap

That amount should generate enough to get UWF within 90 percent of the $20 million it has budgeted for the museum.

But UWF will have to make up a funding gap.

UWF has raised $5 million for the museum. It is expected to receive $13 million from tax credits, totaling $18.4 million. It will be left with a $2.8 million gap to make up.

UWF also hopes to have its $5 million matched through a state Cortellis grant. But that may not happen for a while, considering the Florida Legislature has not funded Cortellis for the past two years.

So, if the CMPA blesses this new path Friday, UWF will immediately begin trying to raise the additional $2.8 million through fundraising, a bridge loan or other options, Bense said.

"This would have some pretty stringent deadlines associated with it, so UWF will be doing everything it can to meet those deadlines," Spear said. "We are going to put out the call and see if we can get donors to help fill this small gap."

Meeting the criteria

The Maritime Park meets the criteria to get tax credits because it is in a disadvantaged community, and it would advance a project that otherwise may have not happened, Collier said.

As a $40 million project, the park would not have met the criteria, but it does meet it when the $20 million museum is added in.

The project also could get $4 million in tax credits to pay fees, interest, attorney fees and other annual costs associated with paying off $40 million in bonds.

This could save the city $600,000 to $800,000 a year on retiring the bonds, Collier said. However, it would not increase the $40 million for construction.