Hoover zoning board recommends approval of 200-person senior living community in Riverchase
The Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission tonight recommended the Hoover City Council allow a Virginia company to build a senior living community in Riverchase for nearly 200 people.
A company called Smith/Packett, based in the Roanoke, Virginia, area wants to build the senior community on property along Parkway Lake Drive between U.S. 31 and Parkway River Drive.
Cole Williams of the Goodwyn, Mills & Cawood architectural firm represented Smith/Packett at tonight’s meeting and said the company plans to build about 90 independent living units, about 70 assisted living beds and about 34 memory care beds at that location. The proposed name is The Crossings at Hoover.
Plans show four-story buildings for the independent living units and assisted living facility and a one-story building for the memory care beds. All of the units and beds would be rented out and not purchased by users, Williams said.
Mike Wood, chairman of the zoning board, said a senior living community is a good use of the property, which is located in the Riverchase office park. Obviously, Smith/Packett sees a need for this type of facility in the area or it wouldn’t be making this kind of investment, Wood said. He saw no reason to object, he said.
Hoover City Administrator Allan Rice, who sits on the zoning board, said some other parties that have expressed interest in that property had uses in mind that were far more objectionable than a senior living community.
The land is zoned for light industrial use, so a senior living community requires “conditional use” approval by the city. The final decision now is up to the Hoover City Council.
Smith/Packett, founded in 1982, has developed or acquired more than 150 senior health and housing facilities with an aggregate value in excess of $1.5 billion, according to the company’s website.
Over the past four years, the company has managed more than $100 million annually in new construction, senior housing and related health care projects, the website says. In that timeframe, Smith/Packett has developed 43 senior living facilities with an aggregate value of $412 million.
So far, the company has developed properties in Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, the website says. Smith/Packett has not yet developed any senior living communities in Alabama, but plans are in the works for such facilities in Montgomery and Tuscaloosa, Williams said.
The average age in Smith/Packett’s other independent living facilities is late 70s to early 80s, Williams said. The average age for assisted living beds is older, and the average age for memory care units is early-to-mid-70s, he said.
In other business tonight, the Planning and Zoning Commission approved:
- Preliminary plans for 79 residential lots in phase two of the Flemming Farms subdivision in Trace Crossings.
- Final plans for Stadium Trace Village Plat No. 1, creating three commercial lots out of two existing lots and additional acreage for the Stadium Trace Village shopping center planned along John Hawkins Parkway between Stadium Trace Parkway and Interstate 459. All of these lots are on the side of the property closest to Stadium Trace Parkway. The developer needed to redraw lot lines in order to sell about 4 acres for development of a medical office building, according to a surveyor representing the developer, Broad Metro LLC.
- A request to allow beer and wine to be sold in the convenience store inside the Hampton Inn and Suites at 4520 Galleria Boulevard, Suite 144. This request still requires approval of the City Council before alcohol can be sold.
New sidewalk regulations
The planning commission tonight originally was scheduled to consider changes in the city’s sidewalk regulations but delayed consideration of that issue until the Feb. 12 meeting.
However, Stacy Pickett, a resident of the Chace Lake subdivision, said she was disappointed to see so many exceptions being considered for a proposed requirement that developers add sidewalks on both sides of the street and connect those sidewalks to other nearby existing sidewalks.
Pickett said she lives in a community that is close to a lot of things but can’t walk to any of those safely because the sidewalks in her community do not connect to those nearby amenities. She would love to see Hoover become more pedestrian-friendly, she said.
She encouraged the commission to look for ways to make the sidewalks happen more so than looking for ways to make exceptions for why developers should not have to build them.
Additionally, a request by Signature Homes for final approval for 46 residential lots in Phase 2A of the Lake Wilborn subdivision also was delayed until Feb. 12.