Hoover prepares to replace more streetlights on U.S. 31

The city of Hoover is getting ready to replace more streetlights along U.S. 31.

The Hoover City Council on Monday night agreed to hire Skipper Consulting to do engineering and design work to replace all the streetlights on a 1.35-mile stretch of the federal highway between Interstate 65 and Patton Chapel Road South.

The existing street light fixtures are more than 30 years old and provide inadequate illumination, city records show. Many of the poles have been damaged, and many others are leaning. Replacement poles and spare parts for the luminaries are becoming difficult to obtain, records show.

The new streetlights will use LED (light-emitting diode) technology that should have longer bulb life and reduced energy consumption, City Engineer Rodney Long said. The new poles also will be taller (40 feet) and provide better and more consistent lighting for the road, which should improve safety, Long said.

The city will pay Skipper Consulting $83,098 for the engineering and design work.

Design work is expected to be complete by this summer, and then it must be approved by the state before the project can move forward, Long said. City officials hope to have a construction contract awarded by November, but it usually takes six to ninth months for a contractor to procure poles, so actual installation of the new poles likely won't begin until the summer of 2020, he said. Once installation begins, the project should take about six months, he said.

This is the second phase of replacing streetlights along U.S. 31. The first phase covered a roughly 2-mile stretch between the Cahaba River and Patton Chapel Road South. That installation took place in 2018, and officials are still conducting tests on some of those new lights, Long said.

In other business Monday night, the Hoover City Council:

• Named Eloise Martens as a trustee emeritus for the Hoover Public Library Board. Martens was one of the original board members appointed for the library in 1982 and recently stepped down after 36 years of service.

• Honored Hoover City Clerk Margie Handley, who was participating in her last council meeting. Handley is retiring at the end of this month after serving as city clerk since 2009 and having worked with the city for more than 27 years in total.

• Honored Jim Hays for 35 years of service with the city’s 911 Dispatch Department and Lt. Larry Florence, Brian Hallman, Capt. Tim Lawson, Lt. Michael Norman, Capt. Toby Rigsby and Randy Wiggins for 20 years of service with the Hoover Fire Department.
• Amended its agreement with the Shelby Humane Society so that the group now will receive all domesticated animals taken in by the city’s animal control officers, regardless of whether the animals were captured in Jefferson or Shelby counties. The city will pay the Shelby Humane Society $20,000 instead of $4,000.
• Agreed to pay $46,500 to the Center for Public Safety Excellence for professional services related to the Hoover Fire Department seeking accreditation through the organization.
• Gave approval for a spring carnival to be held in the Aveda Institute parking lot at the Riverchase Galleria on March 26-30.
• Annexed a single residential lot at 3960 South Shades Crest Road owned by Diane Hoang.
• Gave approval for the New York Butcher Shoppe to sell beer and wine at 6801 Cahaba Valley Road, Suite 12, for off-premise consumption only.
• Gave approval for the Junior League of Birmingham to serve alcoholic beverages at the organization’s Bargain Bash fundraising event at the former Winn-Dixie shopping center at 2467 John Hawkins Parkway on April 25.
• Set public hearings for April 15 to consider a request for a 15,000-square-foot retail strip shopping center at 1539 and 1541 Montgomery Highway and a three-story, 60,000-square-foot self-storage facility and 9,000-square-foot strip retail shopping center at 5281 Ross Bridge Parkway, just north of the Walgreens pharmacy along Alabama 150 in the Deer Valley community.