Developer plan for apartments, parking deck in The Preserve Town Center causes stir among residents
A developer is causing a stir in and around The Preserve community with a request to rezone part of The Preserve Town Center to create a mixed-use development that includes 295 residential rental units, 38 townhomes, a 40-room boutique hotel, 49,200 square feet of retail space and 943 parking spaces.
A large portion of The Preserve Town Center already is zoned for commercial use with 69,000 square feet of office and retail space approved, but a development company called Capstone Communities wants to rezone part of the property, redesign the development and add residential uses that had not been approved previously.
The proposal, officially submitted to the city on Aug. 14, is slated to be heard by the Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission on Sept. 11 and has drawn mixed reviews among residents in and around The Preserve.
Some residents say they love the plan and have been looking forward to new commercial options near their home for years, but others say putting apartments, a hotel and 943 parking spaces, including a 292-space parking deck, in The Preserve community, changes the essence of what their community is all about.
Christine Botthof, who has lived in The Preserve for 16 years, started an online petition to oppose the plan that has gained more than 2,100 signatures.
Botthof said she is in favor of progress, additional retail in The Preserve and beautifying the community but is against apartments, a hotel and a “massive” parking deck there.
Residents always knew a commercial town center was planned, including a potential grocery store and restaurants, but these other elements were not part of the plan and don’t fit in The Preserve, Botthof said.
“We were waiting for all this retail to come, but what we were not expecting was to be blindsided by 300-something rentals,” she said.
Apartments mixed in with retail would fit much better in a place like the Patton Creek shopping center, which is closer to major thoroughfares and not in the middle of a single-family neighborhood, she said.
“No one can give us a concrete answer as to why this development is good for this particular intersection in Hoover,” Botthof said. “We are a neighborhood.”
Louis Nequette of Nequette Architecture and Design, which is handling the design work for this plan, said in a video his company has been passionate about placemaking for more than 20 years and involved in numerous mixed-use, dynamic town centers.
“Our goal is to simply create places that bring people together and create community,” Nequette said. “We’re excited to be part of this project to do just that.”
USS Real Estate, the master developer of The Preserve, and Capstone Communities, which is proposing to handle development of the Town Center, have numerous goals in mind with this development, Nequette said in the video.
They want to create more places for people to eat and shop while also maintaining the character, energy and beauty of what The Preserve has been able to create over the last 20 years, he said.
They need to make sure there is enough parking, provide smooth traffic flow, protect the “magic” of the adjacent 350-acre Moss Rock Preserve nature park and its boulder fields, and provide more privacy for the “Village Green” park that already is present in the town center by shielding it from traffic along Preserve Parkway with the addition of townhomes along the parkway, he said Now, the “Village Greene” is directly adjacent to the parkway.
The developers, in their application to the city, say the mixed-use components of the plan are necessary for the development to thrive.
Nequette in the video said they want to provide people with a variety of residential options, from two-story townhomes to three-story apartment buildings and two-story and three-story mixed-use buildings with retail on the ground level and apartments above.
Adding the rental units draws in different generations of customers, such as young professionals and empty nesters, that will help the retail businesses survive because those types of people visit retail areas at different times of the day than families with children, Nequette said.
The developers also hope to protect the nature park and popular boulder field by increasing the required buffer between the boulder field and any buildings and putting residential property closer to the park than the retail areas, he said.
Currently, the required buffer for the boulder field is just 50 feet, but Capstone Communities is proposing to keep structures at least 200 feet from the builder field, according to the company’s application.
The Friends of Moss Rock Preserve group said on its Facebook page that it for years has encouraged the city of Hoover to buy 8 acres next to the boulder field from U.S. Steel to serve as a buffer.
That never happened, but the conservation group said it appreciates Capstone Communities agreeing to expand the buffer from 50 to 200 feet.
“While it is not the original 8 acres we had hoped to protect, … we support this buffer as the property is developed,” the group said. “We do not take a position in favor or in opposition to the overall development so long as the 200-foot buffer around the boulder field is maintained and adequate public parking is provided within the development to access the boulder field area as required in the Preserve PUD. In regards to details within the development, we leave that for others to decide those details.”
Nequette also said in the video that his company is proposing to develop a plaza in the middle of the town center — on the north side of Preserve Parkway — that can easily be blocked off for pedestrian traffic only during special events such as festivals or farmers markets.
“The magic happens in the spaces between buildings — energetic and dynamic outdoor spaces,” he said.
Dr. Manci Hoesley, who has lived in The Preserve since 2003, said she and her husband are very excited about the proposed plan.
“They always talked about having a town center. I just never thought it would happen,” she said.
For many years, the only commercial part of the development has been a small strip on the south side of Preserve Parkway that now includes the Vecchia Pizzeria & Mercato, Moss Rock Tacos & Tequilas, Moss Rock Pharmacy, Stone Salon and USS Real Estate office.
The Hoover City Council in November 2018 approved a zoning change that would allow a grocery store occupying up to 29,000 square feet in the Town Center, but the grocery store never materialized.
Hoesley said the commercial part of the development fell off the radar, and she’s glad to see it have some life again. She looks forward to having more restaurant options and potentially a coffee shop, breakfast place and an area that could be closed off to traffic for the community’s annual Mardi Gras parade.
“I don’t know why people are so against it,” she said. “I’m excited.”
Botthof said she’s not against the retail and she has no problem with apartments in general. She lived in apartments in New York City for many years, but The Preserve is not the right place for them, she said.
“The majority of people want to preserve what we have here,” Botthof said. “Apartments change the whole idea I had for the rest of my life. … It’s the integrity of this neighborhood as a suburban neighborhood, not urban sprawl.”
Sherri Williams, who moved to The Preserve from Vestavia Hills in 2005 after becoming an empty nester, said she loves the nature of the neighborhood and is in her fourth house in the community. She doesn’t think additional retail will survive in The Preserve and doesn’t want it or the additional traffic that more retail and apartments would bring, she said.
“It just makes no sense to me,” Williams said. “What they’re doing is changing the very essence of what The Preserve is supposed to be. It’s just an incredible neighborhood. … We would never have bought here in 2005 if we had been told they would have apartments.”
She’s a Realtor, and one of her clients just built a custom $2 million home next to the Village Green in The Preserve, she said. That client now says she would have made a different decision had she known apartments would be added to the neighborhood, Williams said. “She’s devastated.”
People who live in other neighborhoods near The Preserve also have expressed opposition to having apartments built there, Williams said.
Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato said the city has had many controversial projects come up over the years, and it’s important for the community to get involved and provide their input. It’s equally important for the developer to have the opportunity to share his project, the mayor said.
“What we’ve seen over the years is that successful development like this that have been controversial can come to fruition if the two work together and try to come up with the best product for the community, and that’s what we hope will take place here,” Brocato said.
The solution is to have all the parties get together and try to work though the issues that are troubling to different parties, he said.
Brocato said he’s heard from both a good number of people who oppose the development and a good number of people in favor of it, and “they are equally as passionate about it."
Everyone will have a right to be heard when it comes before the Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission and Hoover City Council if the project makes it to the council for consideration, he said.
“This is how the process works. Everybody needs their day in court, so to speak,” Brocato said. “There are going to be lots of opportunities for people on both sides of the fence, including the developer, to share their story.”
The developer and architect have conducted small group meetings at The Preserve Town Hall at 601 Preserve Way on Monday and Tuesday, Aug. 28-29 and plan to have another one on Tuesday, Sept. 5, to give people a chance to drop by anytime between 6 and 8:30 p.m. to learn more about the proposal and share feedback.
The Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission is scheduled to consider the rezoning request on Sept. 11 at Hoover City Hall at 100 Municipal Drive. The commission normally has a work session at 5 p.m. and an action meeting at 5:30 p.m.