Creating city center, adding sidewalks and entertainment among issues at first Future Hoover meeting

Creating a city center, adding sidewalks and entertainment options, and helping maintain and develop older parts of Hoover all were issues that residents said they want addressed during a town hall meeting Tuesday night.

About 45 people showed up at Hunter Street Baptist Church for the first of four “Future Hoover” meetings, designed to let residents say what they want in their city in the years to come.

George Burns, a resident of the Highland Crest community, said Hoover doesn’t really have a place where the police can block off the streets and have events, but it needs some type of city center.

Mayor Frank Brocato said that was one of the elements of his campaign last year and it’s good to hear residents reinforce his belief that the city needs a “downtown” area.

However, he doesn’t want to be the one to decide where that should be, he said. He wants the city to hire a professional consultant to help identify that area and listen to residents’ suggestions. “To me, that’s the No. 1 thing we’re lacking in Hoover,” Brocato said.

Another man said the city needs more entertainment options like the Treetop Family Adventure off U.S. 280 and Shelby County 41 and the Birmingham Barons, who relocated from Hoover to downtown Birmingham.

City Administrator Allan Rice agreed and said that “entertainment is the new retail” in terms of economic development.

Rice noted that in December the Hoover City Council approved a new “extreme recreation center” called Next Levl in the Tattersall Park development next to Greystone and that a Skyzone trampoline arena opened recently in the Centre at Riverchase shopping center. Dave and Buster’s also plans to open in the Riverchase Galleria.

Rice said there also is a possibility for an entertainment district around the Galleria, where people can walk on sidewalks from one venue to the next.

Resident Pam Thompson said there needs to be an emphasis on redevelopment. There is a sad shopping center in Bluff Park that the landlord won’t keep up, she said.

Brocato said city officials are actively involved with the owner of one of the shopping centers in Bluff Park who cares about his property.

One resident said the new Finley Center in the Hoover Metropolitan Complex is one of the best facilities he has seen in a long time, and a new performing arts center would be another diamond in Hoover’s crown.

However, he wants to see the city bring some new facilities into the older parts of Hoover. “Everything seems to be going in one direction,” he said, referring to the newer parts of the city.

Longtime resident Linda Chastain said she has become very disturbed about what is happening in Bluff Park in recent months. First, the community center was condemned, and now it looks like the Artists on the Bluff facility at the former Bluff Park Elementary School is going to be torn down, she said.

The nearly-100-year-old Bluff Park School is the center of the Bluff Park community, and now the Bluff Park Art Association is considering moving the Bluff Park Art Show from the park at the community center, she said.

Rice said the community center in Bluff Park is owned by the same private entity that owns the Shades Cliff pool. The city has leased the community center and controlled its scheduling, but the building is beyond reasonable repair. The city now is trying to decide whether to invest money in the facility when it doesn’t own it and the owner doesn’t want to sell it, he said.

Brocato said the city tried very hard to negotiate a solution to save the Artists on the Bluff facility — another building the city doesn’t own, but negotiations with Hoover school officials failed to find one so far.

However, Brocato said he doesn’t’ believe elected officials will let the old Bluff Park School be torn down. “We’re trying to come up with ways to salvage that relationship,” he said.

Councilman Curt Posey, a lifelong resident of Bluff Park, said he and others are discussing the formation of a city arts commission that could help the city obtain funds to support the arts better.

“If the artists leave, what have we accomplished?” Posey said. “Losing the art show would be like losing our left arm or left leg. We can’t do that. We’ve got to take ownership of this and keep it. … We can’t continue to lose our history.”

Other discussions in the town hall meeting centered on helping Hoover schools, improving transportation, making sure public safety is adequately addressed, adding a library branch, funding the stormwater and sewer systems and marketing the city better.

Thad Lowery, who grew up in the Green Valley community and still lives there today, said the meeting was very informative, and he was glad to be invited to be part of city planning.

“Hoover now seems to have a direction more so than what we had in the past,” Lowery said. “I feel very good about it.”

In the past, it seems like city decisions were being made based on what a few people thought, but now it seems more like a community effort, he said. This Future Hoover initiative allows people from Bluff Park, Greystone, Inverness and Riverchase to all come together and find solutions for the entire city, he said.

Nathan Reed, a Russet Woods resident who is in the first Leadership Hoover class, said Hoover is a destination city where people want to raise their children, have a good job and feel safe.

“Nobody’s leaving Hoover to go to Birmingham. Everybody’s leaving Birmingham to come to Hoover,” Reed said.

Hoover needs to prepare itself to be more of a melting pot, he said.

Reed said after the meeting he wasn’t too concerned that there wasn’t much discussion about how the city will fund all of its needs. People need to come to some agreement about what the needs are first, and then a plan can be presented about how to get there, he said.

Brocato said after the meeting that he was excited about the first meeting. “I thought it was just a wonderful dialogue,” he said. “It was everything and more than I expected.”

People had a lot of thought-provoking questions and ideas to share, he said. Transportation is always a concern and a tough issue to tackle, he said. “That’s the frustrating thing about correcting traffic problems. They take such a long time, and it’s a huge coordination effort” that involves multiple government entities.

Regarding paying for some of the ideas brought up tonight, Brocato said he first wants to make sure the city is running as efficiently and cost-effectively as he can before he asks the public to increase any fees or taxes.

That may come at some point in the future, but “we’re not there yet,” Brocato said.

Here is the schedule for the next three Future Hoover meetings:

• Nov. 14: Hoover Municipal Center, William J. Billingsley Council Chambers
• Nov. 21: Jefferson State Community College Shelby-Hoover campus
• Nov. 28: Greystone Elementary School

All the meetings are from 6:30 to 8 p.m. For more information, see the Future Hoover website.