Photos by Jon Anderson
The Hoover City Council on Monday, Aug. 16, 2021, approved the construction of new Zaxby's and Taco Bell restaurants and the replacement of a Jack's restaurant in Hoover, Alabama.
The Hoover City Council on Monday night approved the construction of three drive-through fast-food restaurants in the central part of Hoover.
The council approved:
- A new Zaxby’s at 2071 Patton Chapel Road on a vacant .73-acre parcel next to the Walmart Neighborhood Market near the corner of Lorna Road and Patton Chapel Road.
- A new Taco Bell at 1553 Montgomery Highway, the former site of a Blockbuster Video store that more recently was home to a flooring company (next to Burger King).
- The demolition of the existing Jack’s restaurant at 3429 Lorna Road and construction of a newer design for Jack’s at the same location.
The Zaxby’s will be built by Chicken Scratch Holdings, which already has three other Zaxby’s restaurants in Hoover and nine others in the Birmingham area. The other three in Hoover are on John Hawkins Parkway, Valleydale Road near Caldwell Mill Road, and in the Village at Lee Branch shopping center off U.S. 280.
The new Zaxby’s on Patton Chapel Road will not have indoor seating. There will be outdoor seating for 16 people and a double-lane drive-through that should be able to hold 15 to 20 vehicles at a time, said Russell Pate, one of the owners of Chicken Scratch Holdings. This will be one of the first Zaxby’s in Alabama without indoor seating, due to current dining trends and the small nature of this particular site, Pate said.
The goal is to have the new Zaxby’s built and open by the first quarter of 2022, he said.
The new Jack’s just down the street a bit on Lorna Road will be designed similar to the one recently built in downtown Homewood across from Homewood City Hall, Hoover City Planner Mac Martin said.
In other business Monday night, the Hoover City Council established a Downtown Redevelopment Authority and a Commercial Development Authority. The two entities have similar goals but also some differences, said Greg Knighton, the city of Hoover’s economic developer.
A downtown redevelopment authority can extend credit to make loans to any person, corporation, partnership or other entity to cover the costs of industrial, commercial, office, parking or residential projects in a 3-mile radius within a city’s central business district, Knighton said.
A commercial development authority can spend money to acquire, own and/or lease property in order to induce new commercial enterprises and can make improvements on property for the same purpose, he said.
A commercial development authority has a more defined list of types of projects that it can undertake. Those include manufacturing, research and development and shopping center projects, Knighton said.
While a downtown redevelopment authority can only be established as a three-mile radius from the center of a business district, a commercial development authority can work on projects throughout the entire city, he said.
The Hoover City Council can establish the boundaries of a downtown redevelopment authority district, Knighton said. If a pin were put at the intersection of U.S. 31 and Patton Chapel Road, that district would include the Lorna Road area, U.S. 31 corridor, Bluff Park and the Riverchase Galleria, he said.
A downtown redevelopment authority is tax-exempt, including properties within the authority’s borders, Knighton said.
When asked if there were any specific projects in mind for either of these authorities, Knighton said there were none that he could comment about.
