Reshaping the heart of Hoover

The heart of Hoover’s retail center could see a major transformation in the coming years, with potential redevelopment plans being drawn up for both the Riverchase Galleria and Patton Creek shopping centers.

The Galleria campus, which many people consider the anchor for Hoover’s retail scene, is being eyed as a potential location for a health care facility, which could be a driving force that turns the mall into a mixed-use center, including residential use, City Administrator Allan Rice said.

And just across Galleria Boulevard, the owner of the Patton Creek shopping center — The Necessity Retail REIT — has a very robust redevelopment plan, Rice said.

“That includes taking down probably 75% of what you see over there,” he said. “A few structures will stay, but a lot of the buildings over there will come to the ground, and they’ll start over on a massive redevelopment.”

Health care at the Galleria

Regarding the Galleria, “there is a strong interest in bringing a health care presence to the mall campus,” Rice said. “We have been approached by several different operators expressing their interest.”

A key question is what type of health care facility is needed, he said.

“Hoover has been chasing a hospital for 35 years,” Rice said. “There have been a number of close calls and near-misses over the last 35 years. We feel more optimistic about this effort than ever before. The stars are aligning.”

But it likely wouldn’t be a typical hospital or even a traditional community hospital, Rice said.

What is more likely is a health care facility with a heavy outpatient focus and perhaps a small number of inpatient beds for overnight stay, or what is known as 23-hour beds, Rice said.

City officials believe such a facility would be perfect for Hoover, which is surrounded by hospitals but is the largest city in the

state without a hospital inside its borders, Rice said.

Such a facility probably would require some minor modifications to the state health care plan, but “there is a strategy to obtain that,” Rice said.

The city’s new Hoover Health Care Authority, of which Rice is a member, has hired an attorney who specializes in health care regulatory affairs, and that attorney — Colin Luke — is working to develop an application for a certificate of need from the Alabama Certificate of Need Review Board, Rice said.

The Health Care Authority also will be reviewing information from the city’s economic development staff and consulting firms that do health care planning, he said.

Once the authority gets a better idea of the type of facility that will best serve Hoover residents and others that have access to the Galleria campus, it will proceed with an application, Rice said.

If a certificate of need is issued, the Health Care Authority then would solicit proposals from prospective operators, he said.

An exact location for a health care facility hasn’t been determined, but the Galleria campus is a natural fit because it already has usable structures, parking lots, parking decks, roads, utilities and lighting, as well as proximity to two interstates (I-65 and I-459) and two highways (U.S. 31 and Alabama 150), Rice said.

One particular site being eyed is the former Sears building. A business called Overstock Furniture and Mattress recently started leasing that building, but Rice believes that could be a short-term lease and said he believes the owner of the building — an out-of-state company trying to divest itself of former Sears properties — would be interested in a longer-term tenant.

However, “we’re not locked into that site,” Rice said. “There are many advantages to that site, but it’s surely not the only site.”

Galleria vitality

The health care discussion is the central part of a much bigger conversation about

the future of the entire Galleria campus, Rice said.

It’s no secret that the mall industry nationally is facing challenges and that many malls are evolving into mixed-use facilities, he said.

However, there is a tremendous misconception that the Galleria is not doing well, Rice said.

“That is not a dead mall,” he said. “There are six and a half million cars a year coming on and off that campus. … It’s doing a lot of business. Its cash flow is nice. It generates sales tax at a high rate.”

Businesses on the Galleria campus generated sales of $442 million in 2021, according to a Hoover Sun analysis of tax records. That’s up from $375 million in 2013, records indicate. Sales on the Galleria campus fell from $437 million in 2019 to $358 million in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting temporary closure of the mall and later reduced hours of operation, but 2021 was a banner year for the mall.

And that’s despite the closing of Sears in October 2019.

“There’s a lot going on at that mall,” Rice said. “It’s not all the stores we all remember from our youth, but there is a lot of economic activity going on.”

Rice said he believes there will always be a substantial retail presence at the Riverchase Galleria, but the trends nationally point toward a very robust mixed-use environment that could include a residential component.

“We firmly believe the future of what we know as the Galleria is a mixed-use neighborhood,” Rice said. “It will look much different than a traditional shopping mall.”

Hoover officials are having monthly conversations with one of the primary owners on the Galleria campus — Brookfield Properties, Rice said. That company, which owns the mall common areas, smaller to medium-sized retail spaces and some outparcels, shares a similar vision as city leadership, Rice said.

Brookfield Properties already has seen a former Sears department store at its mall in Rochester, New York, converted into a health care facility, and “my understanding is it’s wildly successful,” Rice said.

Lindsay Kahn, director of public relations and marketing for the retail division of Brookfield Properties, in response to a request for an interview, replied with an email, saying “Brookfield Properties is engaged with the city of Hoover to explore various opportunities at Riverchase Galleria. Reinvesting in our portfolio of retail properties is a high priority for us.”

Patton Creek

Meanwhile, Patton Creek has been the source of angst for many Hoover residents for several years, and Rice said he understands why.

“If you’re a lay person and you’re driving through Patton Creek and you see storefront after storefront going dark and butcher paper going up, and there’s nothing there, you think, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Armageddon. All these places are going out of business,’” Rice said.

But what many people don’t realize is that the owner of the Patton Creek is trying to create vacancies in certain areas because of its redevelopment plan.

“You’ll see that change radically. This is not a redecoration,” Rice said. “You’ll see buildings go away and new stuff come up.”

This is not just a pipe dream, Rice said. The owners of Patton Creek are extremely well-capitalized and heavily invested, “and they’re ready to maximize their investment at that location,” he said.

The redevelopment of Patton Creek gives the city an opportunity for pretty robust participation in that effort, Rice said. That includes not only the possibility of financing bonds for the redevelopment, but also the possibility of putting a new arts center there, he said.

That idea has been floating around for some time, but “it’s getting very, very serious,” Rice said. “We’re starting to see drawings.”

The mayor and City Council will make the final determination about whether to move forward with building an arts center and where it would go, but the owner of Patton Creek is gearing its redevelopment plan to include an arts center “and some other really exciting shared amenities that will be there,” Rice said. “It will create a downtown for Hoover.”

Hoover has never really had that quaint, old Southern downtown area with storefronts, but “this will literally create a downtown footprint,” Rice said.

The city is having very positive conversations with the Patton Creek owner that should materialize in the coming months, he said.

“This company is ready to move. It’s imminently achievable,” Rice said. “They’re ready to do something.”