An $8.5M grant built an America's Cup headquarters; in 2026 Saildrone announced it had retained the shop to build wings for its anti-submarine drone — a pivot the lease required no public re-approval for. S-27 S-89 S-08 S-29
Built and pivoted. The Triumph arc's facility was completed and the publicly-subsidized America's Cup project was recast — by Saildrone's April 2026 announcement that it had retained the shop to build drone wings — as a defense-manufacturing and services operation in prospect, with no public re-approval, and (per the 2024 lease) none required at the lease layer. S-25 S-36 S-08 S-29
Two separate floors. Triumph instruments: 170 jobs at ≥$105k with a $50,000/job clawback (the executed agreement is in the corpus as S-89; its terms are not yet extracted). The 2024 lease: 120 jobs, no wage term of any kind, and a heavily gated $1.5–3M cap as the City's sole and exclusive remedy.
Built (opened 2026-01-07) — then the Cup exit (assets sold 2026-04-08) and a defense pivot: Saildrone announced in April 2026 that it had retained the shop to build composite wings for its anti-submarine drone, Spectre. Triumph's June-2026 report recast the grant as a cluster "catalyst." The lease, read in 2026, shows the pivot needed no amendment and no public re-approval.
The same public investment, described by six successive instruments and documents. Nothing here is overwritten — every state is preserved, dated, and cited. This is what "investment memory" means.
$8,500,000 requested to renovate Warehouse 10 — a 50-ft addition, a dock and boat ramp — "required to secure headquarters relocation of Bella Mente Quantum Racing Association (American Magic)."
The public framing: an America's Cup boat-building operation, 170 jobs at ~$105,000.
Grant Award Agreement #315 executed, effective 2023-10-02 — the instrument that binds the public bet (S-89, in the corpus).
The Triumph instrument set binds 170 jobs at ≥$105k with a $50,000/job clawback (obligation O-AMAG-01). This is the enforceable core of the public bet — its terms have not yet been extracted from the executed agreement, so these figures still rest on Triumph's own report and the prior runs.
120 "New Jobs" — no wage provision of any kind. The counting net is wide (Affiliates and undefined "partners" count); the City's sole and exclusive jobs remedy is a gated liquidated-damages ladder ($3M only if the Tenant vacates; otherwise a second 4-year window, then $1.5M). The permitted-use clause quietly licenses "other products and services that use the Tenant's capabilities."
BMQRA sells its America's Cup boats to American Racing Challenger Team USA and exits Cup competition.
Twelve days later Saildrone unveils Spectre and announces it has retained "American Magic Services" to build its 43-meter composite wings — for an anti-submarine-warfare / kinetic-strike unmanned surface vessel — in the publicly-built facility, with a stated capacity of 5 wings/year.
Triumph's official report recasts the grant: "the recruitment of the American Magic sailing operations… resulted in significant interests from additional marine manufacturing projects." The 170-boat-building- jobs thesis becomes a cluster-catalyst story; the jobs are counted toward a region-wide "8,485 net new jobs" aggregate. Self-reported; promotional context; both claims preserved because they are different claims.
The Feb-2024 lease already licensed almost anything BMQRA is capable of doing — so the 2026 conversion required no amendment and no public re-approval at the lease layer, provided the activity is legally the Tenant's. Whether it is legally the Tenant's (the AMS question) is precisely what remains monitored, now with lease-compliance stakes (Article 18) and dated triggers T3a–T3d.
Without JavaScript, or with reduced motion, this renders as the full stacked timeline. Each state's headline status is the least certain of its sentences; dates and instrument presence derive from the registry and the instrument facts. Data: thesis-evolution-315.json, generated from the record — not hand-typed into this page.
| Funder · recipient | Amount | Instrument · citations |
|---|---|---|
| Triumph Gulf Coast — Triumph Gulf Coast, Inc. City of Pensacola — American Magic #315 (facility leased to BMQRA) | $8,500,000 committed | Triumph GAA #315 (facility leased to BMQRA) S-89 S-07 S-15 |
| State of Florida — Florida Commerce (DEO) — Job Growth Grant American Magic #315 Phase 1 funds — Florida Dept. of Commerce (DEO) Job Growth Grant, per the lease's Exhibit C estimate | $3,900,000 reported, not counted | FL Commerce grant agreement — the lease's 'Estimated Available Funds' line (wanted W-08) S-29 S-46 |
| Local government — City of Pensacola (receives — Base Rent prepaid by the Tenant, BMQRA) City of Pensacola — #315 Base Rent Prepayment, Lease Years 1–8 (partial) and 11–13, due by 2025-09-30 | $3,082,286 reported, not counted | Lease First Amendment §1.i — published copy tenant-executed only (City blocks and effective date blank; W-45) S-106 S-107 |
| Local government — City of Pensacola Grantee — City of Pensacola (of which $3.2M existing building) | $8,600,000 reported, not counted | stated stack line — GAA #315 Exhibit A budget, as executed 2023-10-02 (S-89 printed pp. 26–27) S-89 |
Rows are this decision's entries in the Money ledger; stages are never summed together.
2023 application: the City requested $8,500,000 from Triumph Gulf Coast for design, renovation and finish-out of the partially completed Warehouse 10 at the Port — including a 50-foot addition and a dock and boat ramp — "required to secure headquarters relocation of Bella Mente Quantum Racing Association (American Magic)."
The Triumph instrument set carries the binding job obligation of record — 170 jobs at ≥$105k with a $50k/job clawback (O-AMAG-01) — per the prior American Magic runs. The executed Grant Award Agreement is in the corpus as S-89 (effective 2023-10-02; intaked 2026-08-23). Its Performance Metrics (§8.3) are now extracted and quoted below; its other terms are not yet extracted.
The executed agreement's Performance Metrics (§8.3), in its own words: by the Ramp-Up Deadline "BMQRA will have created at least 150 New Jobs (as defined below) and the Port of Pensacola will have created at least 20 New Jobs", and "All of the 170 New Jobs shall have been maintained for at least four (4) years after the Ramp-Up Deadline." If the metrics are not achieved, "Grantee shall pay to Triumph the Performance Metric Clawback Amounts" — and the agreement names the Grantee as "the CITY OF PENSACOLA, a Florida municipal corporation". The agreement is "by and between" Triumph and the City; the repayment runs from the City to Triumph.
Recourse, as the corpus stands: no City–BMQRA performance agreement, guaranty or side instrument for #315 is referenced by any source in the corpus. The executed agreement's only requirement of a City–BMQRA instrument is the lease, and the three terms it sets for that lease are rent, term and reversion of the improvements to the City (§3.2). The lease's general indemnity (§8.06) and default remedies (§16.02) are each read two ways as to whether they would reach a repayment to Triumph, and so is the "sole and exclusive remedy" of its own 120-job clause (§6.08(d)). Neither reading is adopted; the question is held open as Q-29. For #120, by contrast, the grant agreement makes the company "solely liable to Triumph for all such clawback payments" under a Performance Agreement it signed.
2024 lease (S-29): 120 "New Jobs," and no wage provision of any kind. The job-counting net is wide (Tenant, Affiliates, and undefined "partners"; FTEs paid through related parties count). The City's sole and exclusive remedy is a heavily gated liquidated-damages structure — $3M only if the Tenant has substantially vacated; otherwise a second 4-year window, then $1.5M.
The jobs deadline is the earlier of 3 years after the Date of Beneficial Occupancy or 2029-12-31. If the DBO tracks the facility's 2026-01-07 opening (an inference — the DBO certificate is not in the record), the binding deadline is ≈ January 2029, ~11 months earlier than commonly assumed.
Construction "Completed" per Triumph's own June-2026 grant tracker; "Metrics: On Track" is Triumph's forward-looking self-assessment — job metrics are not formally due until 2029 and are unverified.
The $20.8M, 56,000-sq-ft "American Magic High Performance Center" formally opened 2026-01-07; it is City-owned and leased to BMQRA.
2026-04-08: American Magic sold its America's Cup assets (AC75 "Patriot" + two AC40s) to American Racing Challenger Team USA — a full exit from Cup competition. AMS is now a paid services provider to that team.
Saildrone's April 2026 release: "American Magic Services" has been retained by Saildrone, and the 43-meter composite wing for "Spectre" — an anti-submarine-warfare / kinetic-strike unmanned surface vessel carrying Lockheed Martin Mk70 launchers and TB29 arrays — will be manufactured at the Pensacola facility; stated capacity 5 wings/year.
Triumph's June-2026 report to the Governor describes the grant as "the recruitment of the American Magic sailing operations… result[ing] in significant interests from additional marine manufacturing projects" — the original 170-boat-building-jobs thesis recast as a cluster-catalyst story, in an official document. Both claims are preserved here; they are different claims.
A 2022 FDOT Hurricane Sally recovery/resiliency grant to the Port — $2,253,131, award 44554819402 (G2711), Council-approved 2022-02-10 — has been drawn down: per the City's own July 2026 council memorandum, "$1,919,221.38 of the grant has been expended, PRIMARILY to support repairs to Warehouse 10 under the High Performance Maritime Center of Excellence development project" — Warehouse 10 being this decision's American Magic facility. The Warehouse-10-attributable amount is ≤$1,919,221.38 and is NOT itemized: "primarily" is the memo's word; no split is stated. The remainder went to the Warehouse 5 floor (a non-cluster general-cargo project).
Uncounted-stack CANDIDATE (inference, flagged — held at candidate: one documented instance + one lead ≠ pattern): disaster-recovery funds expended on cluster-serving infrastructure appear in NO announced Harbor-Bet funding stack in the record. Candidate input to the R-4 delta (the lease-era ~$15M budget vs the reported $20.8M facility cost): up to ~$1.92M of that delta may be G2711-sourced. NOT netted against R-4 until the Warehouse-10-attributable amount is documented; the port-railway-rehab lead (W-26) is the second possible instance of the same mechanism, still lead-status only.
[Dated append 2026-08-13 — WO-014, extending the block above.] The Port's Hurricane-Sally recovery stack is now THREE streams deep, labeled per stream and never casually summed: (1) FDOT G2711, $2,253,131 — ≤$1,919,221.38 expended "primarily" on Warehouse 10, this decision's facility; (2) FSTED G2838 + G2856, $2,374,918 — Port rail/road co-funding (2022); (3) HUD CDBG-DR via Florida Commerce, HS002, $11,403,935.38 — Port road/rail (2023–26), whose +$2.3M increase is reallocated Sally HOUSING money (the port-road-rail decision). …
[Dated append 2026-08-13 — WO-014, extending the block above.] The Port's Hurricane-Sally recovery stack is now THREE streams deep, labeled per stream and never casually summed: (1) FDOT G2711, $2,253,131 — ≤$1,919,221.38 expended "primarily" on Warehouse 10, this decision's facility; (2) FSTED G2838 + G2856, $2,374,918 — Port rail/road co-funding (2022); (3) HUD CDBG-DR via Florida Commerce, HS002, $11,403,935.38 — Port road/rail (2023–26), whose +$2.3M increase is reallocated Sally HOUSING money (the port-road-rail decision). None of it appears in any announced cluster funding stack. The uncounted-stack CANDIDATE now holds TWO documented instances with DISTINCT mechanisms — a recovery grant expended on a cluster facility (G2711) vs a housing award reallocated to port infrastructure (HS002) — kept separate; promotion to a named pattern remains gated on whether the rehabilitated rail physically serves the cluster (Q-21; the instrument's named beneficiaries are the bulk-cargo supply chain, and a port official's on-record denial names American Magic only).
The lease's permitted-use clause (§5.01) reaches far beyond the sail-racing framing of its own recitals: it licenses "the design and manufacture of sail racing and other boats and boat products and services" and "other products and services that use the Tenant's capabilities." The 2026 conversion therefore required no lease amendment and no public re-approval at the lease layer — provided the activity is legally the Tenant's (BMQRA's).
A residual ambiguity is preserved: §5.03(d) prohibits activity "not specifically permitted" by §5.01, and a narrow reading confining the catch-alls to the sail-racing genus is arguable. Neither reading is adopted; neither has been tested.
A First Amendment to the lease is in the corpus only as published: signed for the Tenant (Michael Cazer, CEO, 4-1-25), with the City's signature blocks and its effective date blank. The corpus holds no executed amendment. If executed, it would replace §5.01 with text that keeps both catch-alls word for word — "the design and manufacture of sail racing and other boats and boat products and services" and "other products and services that use the Tenant's capabilities" — and adds "52 Super Series" to the named competitions and "and other boats" to the uses for training and competition. The original §5.01 above stands as the operative text of record; the catch-alls read the same either way.
City Council approved the amendment on April 10, 2025 (item 25-324): "The motion passed by the following vote: Yes: 5 … No: 0", on a motion by Council Vice President Patton, seconded by Council Member Brahier, with Mayor Reeves as sponsor. The Council also authorized the Mayor "to finalize, execute, and administer this lease amendment." The executed counterpart is not in the public record located to date.
WHO occupies the premises: "American Magic Services" is American Magic Services, Inc., a Delaware corporation distinct from BMQRA per the state filings (September 2026 correction). If it — or any SailGP entity — occupies or uses space, the lease's Article 18 requires written City consent or a 10-day affiliate notice, and non-compliance is a top-tier Event of Default. No consent, notice, or amendment is in the public record — and none has yet been requested. Dated triggers T3a–T3d stand; see Q-28.
Whether defense-manufacturing revenue flows through the 501(c)(3) or through American Magic Services, Inc. — the separate corporation the September 2026 registry search found: undetermined. No filing in hand names a revenue, customer or contract, and the Saildrone deal post-dates BMQRA's latest IRS filing. Revisit trigger: the FY2026 Form 990 (~2027).
A live CITY-side obligation nobody is tracking: if Phase 2 (dock/ramp/slip) was not substantially complete by 2025-12-31 — it was not; the dock work was awarded to RJ Gorman only in 2026 — the City must provide berth/Bay-access accommodation at no charge beyond Base Rent (O-AMAG-09). What is being provided, at what forgone revenue, is unknown.
The occupancy/entity axis (Run 06 §9, trigger T3 fired 2026-08-09, split resolution): the lease's use rights run to the Tenant (BMQRA). If AMS — or any SailGP entity — is a distinct legal person occupying or using the premises, Article 18 requires written City consent or a 10-day affiliate notice, and §16.01(c) makes noncompliance a top-tier Event of Default. No consent, notice, or amendment is in the public record; none has yet been requested. The controlling fact (AMS's exact legal form) is shared with Q-04. [Dated append 2026-09-24, WO-039 — American Magic Run 10:] The controlling fact is now documented: American Magic Services, Inc. is a distinct legal entity — a Delaware corporation (file 7684201, incorporated 2024-10-29) qualified in Florida (F24000006527, 2024-12-26) (S-103, S-98, S-99). The benign marker "AMS confirmed as a BMQRA d/b/a" can no longer occur. The question moves to its distinct-entity branch: whether AMS occupies or uses the premises under an Article 18 consent, notice, license or sublease. Of the escalate marker's elements, only the first (a distinct entity) is now documented. AMS's presence at the premises rests on a company release (S-08, C-0087-REV, reported). "No Art. 18 paper trail" is so far only an absence from the public record, and that record has not been requested (W-05). Article 18 is now transcribed verbatim (Run 10, C-0144). The occupancy-instrument and jobs-attribution questions are carried together as Q-28. Status unchanged: monitored.
(QC-R04-2, Run 01 §5, sharpened by Addendum A.) Which berths/tracks does the rehabilitated rail/road serve, and do they serve the maritime-defense cluster tenants (Warehouse 10 / AMS / the prospective Birdon berths) or the bulk-cargo operation (Pate Stevedores / GE Vernova / Timab, per Run 03)? The HS002 scope names Berth 2 (cathodic) and the asphalt/aggregate/ concrete/block supply chains — which cuts AGAINST assuming cluster service (C-PRR-0009). Sharpened on the record: Shep Coggin (Port Commercial Development & Seaport Security Manager), to council: "This has nothing to do with American Magic" (C-PRR-0026) — the denial names American Magic only; the berth/track geography question is unanswered and now also covers whether rail serves the proposed Birdon/shipbuilding footprint, since the rail money and the $76M pitch moved through the same weeks (C-PRR-0027). GATES the uncounted-stack pattern promotion (two documented instances, distinct mechanisms, held at candidate).
Two things the record cannot yet answer about AMS at the City-owned AMHPC: the instrument it operates under, and whether jobs on its payroll count toward the New Jobs S-89 measures. American Magic Services, Inc. is a Delaware corporation qualified in Florida, a legal entity distinct from BMQRA per the state filings (Run 10, C-0128–C-0131). Saildrone's April 2026 release places AMS at the American Magic High Performance Center (C-0087-REV) — the City-owned facility the City leases to BMQRA (S-29). (1) Under what instrument does AMS occupy or operate at the premises? The lease's Article 18 (C-0144) requires the City's prior written consent to any sublease, and defines "sublease" to include "any sublease, license, or agreement, regardless of how denominated, that permits a third party to occupy or use all or any part of the Leased Premises other than those persons who use the Leased Premises in the ordinary course of Tenant's business". It allows an internal assignment to "an entity that has common ownership or is otherwise an affiliated entity" on ten days' advance notice. No consent, notice, license or sublease concerning AMS is in the public record; none has been requested (W-05). (2) Do employees on AMS's payroll count toward S-89's Performance Metric #1? §8.3 (C-0142) measures "at least 150 New Jobs" that "BMQRA will have created", and 20 by the Port of Pensacola, of the 170. It defines a New Job as "a job at the Port of Pensacola" performed by "a full-time employee or a full-time equivalent employee", and it names no employer. The recital speaks of "150 jobs provided by BMQRA at the Facility" (C-0143). Whether a job on AMS's payroll is one that BMQRA "will have created" is not stated by the instrument. The two entities' filings show four officers in common (C-0138). That is overlap; it answers neither question. A question, not a finding; no motive is imputed to anyone. [Dated note 2026-09-24, PR #46 founder ruling 4:] Article 18 is read two ways, both preserved and neither adopted (Run 10 §5 item 4). §18.02's consent sentence ("shall not sublet … without having first obtained … prior written consent") carries no Affiliate exception, and "except to an Affiliate" appears only in the next paragraph, which governs the 30-day request procedure. One reading applies the carve-out to consent (Run 06 §4); the other confines it to the procedure. Which one governs an AMS occupancy is not decided here. [Dated note 2026-09-24, WO-040:] cross-reference Q-29 — if the §8.3 metrics fail, the City repays Triumph; whether any instrument gives the City recourse is held open there. Whose employees count (this question) decides whether the metrics are met; Q-29 asks who bears it if they are not.
If the executed agreement's Performance Metrics are not achieved, the Grantee repays Triumph, and the Grantee is the City of Pensacola (Run 10, C-0142, C-0146). Does any instrument give the City recourse against BMQRA, or against any other party, for that repayment? The lease names none (Run 11, C-0153, C-0155). Its general indemnity (§8.06, C-0147) and its default remedies (§16.02, C-0150) are each read two ways as to whether they would reach such a repayment. So is the "sole and exclusive remedy" of its own 120-job clause (§6.08(d), C-0152). Neither reading of any of the three is adopted. No City–BMQRA performance agreement, guaranty or side instrument for #315 is referenced by any source in the corpus (C-0156). In #120, by contrast, the grant agreement makes the company "solely liable to Triumph for all such clawback payments" under a Performance Agreement it signed (S-41, S-58). If no instrument gives the City recourse, who decided that the public would hold that risk, and on what record, is a question the record cannot answer. Cross-reference Q-28 (whose employees count toward the metrics). A question, not a finding; no motive is imputed to anyone.
Verified edges are supported by an executed document. Proposed and reported edges describe instruments that are drafted, approved-but-nonbinding, or stated publicly. Inferred edges are the project's own reading of the record, labeled as such.
Related decisions in the graph: Birdon / Project Maeve (#367) (adjacent to, reported) · Birdon / Project Maeve (#367) (candidate catalyst of, inferred) · UWF WAVE (#330) (catalyzed, reported) · UWF WAVE (#330) (teaming agreement with, reported) · HPMCE Dock Complex (Bid 26-029) (part of, verified) · all decisions → · Money · Questions · Evidence