Photo by Jon Anderson
The city of Hoover has an offer from a company to buy the former Lorna Professional Building at 3021 Lorna Road for $1.9 million — the same price the city agreed to pay for the building in December 2022.
The Hoover City Council this week voted to approve a letter of intent to sell a 24,000-square-foot office building on Lorna Road the city bought three years ago.
A company called PWD Equity Partners is proposing to buy the building for $1.9 million — the same price the city agreed to pay for the three-story building in December 2022.
The city bought the Lorna Professional Building at 3021 Lorna Road with the intention of relocating Hoover Fire Department administrative offices there from the Hoover Public Safety Center, where additional room was needed for expansion of the National Computer Forensics Institute.
But city leaders later decided to build an addition onto the Public Safety Center for expansion of the NCFI and to move some city operations to the Riverwalk Village building in Riverchase instead of using the 3021 Building.
“What we have basically there is a building we have no need for,” Council President Casey Middlebrooks said.
Selling the building will allow the city to recoup the money it put into it and get the building back in action, he said.
The principal prospective buyer is Jose Casanova, who plans to open a sleep clinic there, City Attorney Charlie Waldrep said. The sleep clinic should have at least 10 employees and a payroll of more than $1 million, he said.
Also, Casanova and his partners say they plan to invest $2.5 million in renovating the facility, which should generate additional sales tax dollars for the city, Waldrep said. As a private entity, the owners also would pay property taxes on the building, which should be probably close to $100,000 a year for city entitites, with $80,000 of that going to the Hoover Board of Education and $20,000 to the city of Hoover, Waldrep said.
PWD Equity Partners has 30 days to close on the sale, but if the company proves it has spent at least $15,000 above its $5,000 earnest money on due diligence toward the sale, such as architect fees or an environmental assessment, the company will have an additional 60 days to close, Waldrep said.
In other business Monday, the Hoover City Council:
- Amended the city’s budget to provide $80,000 to repair leaking irrigation pipes beneath bullpen turf at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium and install a new sewer line there.
- Voted to pay up to $3,230 in legal fees for Councilman Steve McClinton that he spent to defend himself against an ethics complaint filed by former Hoover Council President John Lyda. The Alabama Ethics Commission determined the claim was without merit and dismissed the complaint in June. The City Council determined that McClinton’s legal defense was an appropriate city expense because he was defending actions he took in his official capacity as a councilman and that he was acting in good faith.
- Accepted a $20,000 grant from the Jefferson County Commission for the nutrition program at the Hoover Senior Center
- Approved an agreement with the University of Alabama at Birmingham for student internships at the Hoover Senior Center
- Approved an agreement expanding the city’s insurance policy for police drones to cover an additional drone and any other drones the city purchases for a cost not to exceed $1,000 per drone
