Hoover council accepts 43 acres of donated parkland along Cahaba River

The Hoover City Council on Tuesday night accepted the donation of about 43 acres of parkland along the Cahaba River in Trace Crossings.

Hoover City Administrator Allan Rice said the donation from Signature Homes is the first phase of a donation that eventually will cover 130 acres, stretch three miles along the Cahaba and be a “game-changer” for how the city enjoys nature.

The park is being called Flemming Park on the Cahaba, named after the man who owned the property for many decades.

“Probably the most unique thing about this is they’re not just giving us the land,” Rice said.

Signature Homes already has developed about five miles of hiking and biking trails on the property and built two restrooms and a pavilion that can hold 30 to 40 people, Signature Homes President Jonathan Belcher said. There also is a gravel parking area that can hold eight to 10 vehicles, Belcher said.

All of that is available not just for residents of Trace Crossings, but for the public in general, Belcher said.

The first donation of 43 acres covers about 1.5 miles of frontage along the Cahaba River, and by the end of 2022, Signature Homes plans to donate the remaining 87 acres after completing more trails and building a bridge over the creek that leads from Wilborn Lake to the Cahaba, Belcher said.

The first 43 acres of land can be accessed from Flemming Parkway, which goes by Bumpus Middle School and leads to the Abingdon by the River residential community developed by Signature Homes.

People also can park in the parking lot by the Hoover Metropolitan Complex tennis courts and reach Flemming Park via sidewalks on Buccaneer Drive and Flemming Parkway, Belcher said. In the future, more trails may be added to create another connection to the northernmost part of the park as well, he said.

Signature Homes worked with an environmental engineer to remove all the invasive species of plants in the parkland and replant indigenous species, Belcher said. The company has pledged to maintain that area for 10 years to make sure the new plant vegetation is well established, he said.

Signature Homes also hopes to work with the Cahaba River Society to construct a “blueway” amenity along that section of the Cahaba in the future, Belcher said.

Counting the nearby 73-acre Black Creek Mountain Bike Park that Signature Homes donated to the city in 2019, there now are 10 miles of new hiking and biking trails that are owned by the city and available to the public, Belcher said.

Rice said the city of Hoover also has an opportunity through a partnership with the Freshwater Land Trust to extend the Flemming Park trails even further.

City officials said they are extremely grateful to Signature Homes for the donation of prepared parkland.

“We’re very fortunate in Hoover to have a company that just repeatedly steps to the plate as a great corporate citizen,” Rice said. “They do a tremendous amount of development here, but they do a tremendous amount of benevolence here as well.

“I think this is going to be a game-changer for this city,” Rice said. “I think it will change the face of how we enjoy nature in the city of Hoover.”

Hoover has more frontage along the Cahaba River than any other city, and “this is an opportunity to maximize that in a responsible way and use it as a true amenity for residents and visitors alike,” he said.

Councilman Mike Shaw said that “if you read social media, you would think that Hoover has no trees. You know, it’s all pavement and we hate trees; we don’t want them. But I hope that as these things come online and our kids and grandkids and everybody can enjoy them, people see this city is committed to green space and committed to public use of land like this and working with very generous private developers who are willing to cast a vision like this. It’s exciting to see these things come to fruition.”

Council President John Lyda said that, as good as Hoover has been at setting aside land for park space, it has never capitalized on the shoreline of the Cahaba River until now.

“This will be a spark and a catalyst to help us do that,” Lyda said. “We’re very grateful.”

Editor's note: This article was updated at 1:54 p.m. on Jan. 5 to correct information about parking availability.