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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Construction of Hoover Fire Station No. 11 is underway at the corner of Stadium Trace Parkway and Langston Ford Drive.
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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Vehicles travel east on Morgan Road on Dec. 14, through a 3-mile stretch being widened from near Interstate 459 to the Jefferson-Shelby county line. Jefferson County hopes to complete the $23 million project by the end of 2022, but that date depends on a lot of things, Jefferson County Deputy Manager Cal Markert said.
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Photo by Jon Anderson.
The city of Hoover is proceeding with a project to replace streetlights along U.S. 31. The existing streetlight fixtures are more than 30 years old and provide inadequate illumination, city records show.
A slimmed-down city budget means fewer capital projects for the city of Hoover in 2021, but there are several projects carrying over from previous years into the new one, including a brand new fire station.
Signature Homes is building Fire Station No. 11 in Trace Crossings, saving the city at least a couple of million dollars.
The station is under construction at the corner of Stadium Trace Parkway and Langston Ford Drive, just south of the turn to Bumpus Middle School. Fire Chief Clay Bentley said he expects it should be completed and ready for use by May.
The 8,800-square-foot station will include three pull-through bays, an emergency operations center for the Hoover Metropolitan Complex, a classroom, kitchen, dining room, living area and sleeping quarters, Bentley said.
The city has budgeted $300,000 to equip the station with things such as a generator, fuel tank, lockers for clothing and firefighting gear, and furniture.
The Fire Department plans to staff the station with 11 firefighters — enough to have three people on duty at all hours every day, including people to cover for off days. They are all already working for the city at Fire Station No. 6 near Deer Valley, Bentley said.
Eight of the new firefighter positions were added in fiscal year 2019, and three more firefighters were added in 2020. The latter three were hired with help from a federal grant that covers 75% of their salaries and benefits for two years and 35% for the third year. The city must pick up the full cost in the fourth year.
The Fire Department plans to move a truck with a 75-foot ladder from Station No. 6 to the new station, as well as a reserve rescue unit, reserve ladder truck and an inflatable boat with a trailer and some specialty water rescue equipment.
The boat and water rescue equipment should come in handy for the 100-acre lake in Blackridge, along with lakes in Trace Crossings and the Cahaba River, where Signature Homes is building a canoe launch.
The new fire station will handle calls in Trace Crossings and Blackridge and along Alabama 150 on the east side of Interstate 459 all the way to Hoover Toyota, Bentley has said.
All of that area currently is covered by Fire Station No. 6, which is having its 14.7-square-mile territory cut roughly in half. Station No. 6 will continue to cover areas such as Lake Cyrus, Deer Valley and areas along South Shades Crest Road, Shelby County 93 and Shelby County 13 (south of Shelby County 52 — also known as Morgan Road).
HOOVER MET COMPLEX RESTROOM/ SHELTER
Another city project is a new restroom facility and storm shelter at the Hoover Metropolitan Complex’s baseball/softball fields. The facility is needed to give people who use that field a closer restroom and a safe place to seek refuge when storms hit, said John Sparks, general manager for the Hoover Met Complex.
Players and fans alike frequently need a place to go during lightning delays, but this facility will be designated as a tornado shelter as well, Sparks said. The shelter should accommodate roughly 100 people, he said.
The City Council put $200,000 in the 2020 budget for that project, but it wasn’t enough, so the council appropriated another $150,000 to get it done in 2021.
The city plans to buy a prefabricated building, and there will be minor site preparation, so Sparks hopes to have the shelter and restrooms in place before the SEC Baseball Tournament in May.
U.S. 31 STREETLIGHTS
The city is also proceeding with a project to replace streetlights along U.S. 31. The first phase of the project — a roughly 2-mile stretch between the Cahaba River and Patton Chapel Road South — was done in 2018. City officials hope to begin the second phase — a 1.35-mile stretch from Patton Chapel Road South to Interstate 65 — by this summer, Chief Operations Officer Jim Wyatt said.
The estimated cost for phase two is $1.27 million, with the federal government picking up 80% of the cost and the city of Hoover paying 20%, Wyatt said.
The existing streetlight 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 officials have said. The new poles also will be taller (40 feet) and provide better and more consistent lighting for the road, which should improve safety, city officials said.
It sometimes takes six to ninth months for a contractor to procure poles, but once installation begins, the project should take about six months, city officials said.
MORGAN ROAD WIDENING
Jefferson County is making progress on a project to widen Morgan Road from Interstate 459 past South Shades Crest Road to the Shelby County line, Jefferson County Deputy Manager Cal Markert said.
Construction crews thus far have been focused on moving utilities and extending drainage culverts, he said. The county hopes to complete the $23 million project by the end of 2022, but that date depends on a lot of things, Markert said.
PATTON CHAPEL ROAD WIDENING/REALIGNMENT
Jefferson County also is taking the lead on an $11 million project to widen and improve Patton Chapel Road and realign its intersections with Preserve Parkway and Chapel Lane into one four-way intersection near Gwin Elementary School.
The replacement bridge over Patton Creek is now open, so the focus will shift to the intersection realignment, Markert said. Once the intersection is complete, workers will shift to the section of Patton Chapel between Crayrich Drive and Tamassee Lane, which is being widened to include a middle turn lane.
The stretch of road between Tamassee and the Patton Creek bridge will not have a middle turn lane, but all of the new road will have a curb and gutter and a sidewalk on the southside of Patton Chapel. The end result will be a sidewalk all the way from U.S. 31 to a point just past the Chapel Creek subdivision, and the city eventually plans to extend the sidewalk further to connect with an existing sidewalk on Park Avenue. Due to delays associated with the bridge project, Markert was reluctant to give a timeframe for the rest of the Patton Chapel Road project.
He noted that the contractor for the bridge project at one point projected the bridge would be complete by June 2020, but that timeline was incorrect because the contractor had to wait for water and fiber lines to be relocated. The county missed its Nov. 9 target bridge reopening date for several reasons, including issues with the road base, COVID-19 sicknesses and a breakdown at an asphalt plant.
Regardless, the bridge contractor’s contract actually gave him until May to complete the bridge, and the state would not allow Jefferson County or Hoover to offer incentives for early completion, Markert said. Technically, the bridge was opened months in advance of the contract date set by the state.
SOUTH SHADES CREST ROAD WIDENING
Jefferson County also is handling a project to add a second northbound lane on South Shades Crest Road between Willow Lake Drive and Alabama.
As of late November, county attorneys were still working on agreements with CSX for the county to widen the bridge over the CSX railroad tracks. A timeline had not been established for beginning construction, Wyatt said.
The widening is expected to cost $5.5 million, with Hoover and Jefferson County splitting the cost.
INVERNESS GREENWAY
Construction of a 1.8-mile pedestrian path along Inverness Parkway from Valleydale Road to and through the Inverness Nature Park is expected to start in January and be completed in the fall of 2021, Shelby County Manager Chad Scroggins said.
The project is costing $2.3 million, with 80% of the money coming from the federal government. Shelby County and Hoover each are contributing $234,630.
OTHER PROJECTS
Hoover also plans to spend $200,000 to upgrade the traffic signal at the intersection of U.S. 31 and Deo Dara Drive and hopefully complete that project by the end of February, weather permitting, Wyatt said.
The city also plans to spend $2.3 million for paving and striping streets, $255,000 for replacement equipment for the sewer system, $230,000 for draining projects, $100,000 for sidewalk maintenance and $55,000 to replace mobile data terminals in 20 Hoover police vehicles.
Leah Ingram Eagle contributed to this story.
