Hoover council adopts new commercial, mixed-use design guidelines

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The Hoover City Council on Monday night approved new architectural and design standards and guidelines for commercial and mixed-use areas that are intended to create a more cohesive look and sense of place.

The new guidelines and standards cover a variety of topics, including site design, building materials, landscaping, parking, traffic flow, lighting, signage and awnings.

The guidelines are not mandatory but are meant to give developers an idea of what types of developments and designs city officials would like to see for new construction or extensive remodeling or renovation projects, said Greg Knighton, the city’s economic development manager.

However, the council also approved very similar standards that could be enforced when a developer is seeking financial incentives from the city, Knighton said.

The stated goals of the new guidelines and standards are to:

  • Cultivate a strong, individual sense of place in business areas
  • Enhance vehicular, pedestrian and bicycle access between neighborhoods and business areas and within business areas
  • Promote the use of green space and trees to complement development
  • Improve the image of the city at gateways and along major corridors
  • Encourage the development of walkable, mixed-use nodes in strategic locations that are active throughout the day/night/week
  • Promote development patterns that create comfortable, safe, multimodal streets
  • Foster creativity in development design that is balanced with cohesiveness and compatibility

The process is much more clear when the city is working with a “planned unit development,” (such as Ross Bridge, Riverchase, Trace Crossings or The Preserve) because those PUDs come with their own set of guidelines, Knighton said. “Each PUD has a distinctive look and feel,” he said.

But city officials for some time have wanted to achieve more cohesive development or redevelopment in other parts of the city. There are three primary target areas in mind: Bluff Park, the U.S. 31 corridor and Lorna Road, but the new guidelines or standards can be applied across the city, Knighton said.

Here are some bits and pieces:

Vehicular and pedestrian design:

  • Buildings should be placed close to and oriented toward the street. Vehicular areas should be placed to the side and/or rear of the building.
  • Pedestrian connections should be provided to adjoining properties and neighborhoods whenever practicable.
  • For major projects, bicycle storage should be provided in visible locations convenient to building entrances.
  • At the street line, driveways should be as narrow as possible given the number of lanes involved, the design speed of the street and the types of vehicles expected to use the driveway. This helps slow vehicular turning movements and minimizes conflict with pedestrian movement along sidewalks crossed by the driveway. On local streets, driveways should be designed with 12 feet of width per ingress/egress lane.

Frontage design:

  • New buildings should be placed, relative to the fronting street, in line with adjacent buildings, excluding existing buildings that are set back behind parking or other vehicular areas.
  • When buildings are set back more than 25 feet from the front property line, trees should be planted with regular spacing along the lot frontage.
  • Support areas should be located away from street views. Waste collection, mechanical equipment, storage, work areas and similar exterior support areas should be screened from public views using quality, durable materials, landscaping or a combination of these.
  • Fences and walls may not be placed within the right of way and may not interfere with sight distance at intersections.

Landscape design:

  • Trees should be evenly distributed throughout parking lots to provide shade.
  • For major projects, public or community gathering space should be included in a visible, accessible location to complement uses and activities within the development. This includes parks, courtyards, plazas and similar types of gathering space. It is preferred that these spaces be enclosed on two or more sides by building walls.
  • Stormwater improvements should be integrated into the site and landscape design and distributed throughout the site into multiple, smaller facilities and improvements, particularly within and at the perimeter of parking areas. This can include rain gardens, bioswales, tree box filters and similar low impact development design techniques.
  • Landscape islands, if lined with vertical curbs, should include inlets for stormwater.
  • The use of permeable paver systems is encouraged for stormwater management purposes in large parking areas subject to engineering approval. This may include porous asphalt, pervious concrete or interlocking paver systems.

Streetscape design:

  • Streets, whether public or private, and collector drives should be designed as ‘complete streets’ with sidewalks, street trees and lighting.
  • Sidewalks in commercial and mixed-use areas should be at least eight feet wide. Wider sidewalks may be necessary to accommodate sidewalk dining.
  • On street frontages without on-street parking, a continuous planting strip at least five feet in width and planted with trees (spaced an average of 40 feet) should separate the sidewalk from the vehicular travel way.
  • Street lighting should be designed and located to light the sidewalk.

Building design:

  • Buildings should be placed close to and oriented toward the street. Vehicular areas, including drive-through functions, should not be located between the building and the street frontage.
  • At least one public entrance to each building should be located along the front façade.
  • Parking structures should be located away from street views or concealed by other buildings.
  • Balconies, when provided, should have an effective depth of at least 3 feet.
  • Buildings should incorporate architectural styles, materials, roof forms, colors, or other elements similar or compatible with prevailing, positive architectural characteristics in the district or node. However, it is not the intended that buildings within a district or node be uniform in appearance.
  • Developments containing multiple buildings should incorporate a mix of colors, materials, stylistic elements and architectural features that give each building a distinctive appearance.
  • Preferred exterior building materials include masonry, wood, and glass curtain wall. Natural or tinted masonry colors are preferred over painted EIFS and other painted masonry.
  • Rooftop equipment should be screened from public view—at grade level—through the parapet or other roof design element.
  • Awnings may not be internally illuminated, though they may be illuminated from above.
  • Building signs should not exceed 15% of the total area of the façade on which they are placed or the tenant’s portion of the façade.
  • Digital reader boards directed at passing motorists are discouraged.

Knighton said while the guidelines and standards are needed, flexibility is key because the city wants to continue to be known as a pro-business community.

Councilman Derrick Murphy said he knows in the last couple of years there has been a lot of discussion about having consistent architectural themes in certain areas of town, and he is glad to see this come about.

While the goal is to provide some uniformity and visual cohesiveness within each commercial district, it’s not necessary for all commercial areas in the city to look the same, city officials said.

“It’s going to benefit us going forward with having a more cohesive standard across the board and acknowledging that we do have some distinctive areas like Bluff Park and others that already have a look and are now being encouraged to keep that historical perspective,” Councilwoman Khristi Driver said.

She thanked the city’s Commercial Development Authority and Downtown Redevelopment Authority for a couple of years of hard work behind the scenes to develop these guidelines and standards.

The city’s planning and economic development staff have been working with those two groups and engaged the KPS Group design firm to help develop the guidelines and standards, Knighton said. Key stakeholders from neighborhood groups and the development community were involved as well, he said.

SOME SOUGHT DELAY

Robin Schultz, an active member of the Bluff Park community, asked who specifically from the Bluff Park community was involved and said he would have liked to have been given an opportunity to provide feedback during development of the guidelines and standards, especially since Bluff Park is a target area.

“We heard nothing about this,” Schultz said.

Jim Massengill, the development director for Broad Metro, the commercial real estate firm developing Stadium Trace Village, also expressed concern that his company had not been involved.

Broad Metro has a good track record of high-quality developments across the country, and Stadium Trace Village generates about $70 million annually in taxable revenue, he said.

“We fully support raising the standards for developments,” Massengill said. “We have been in front of this curve in a lot of things we’ve done in Hoover – wider sidewalks, addressing storm drainage issues, permeable surfaces. We’re fully on board with those things. … [But] we’re a major stakeholder in Hoover, and we’re concerned with who really had input to give feedback.”

Massengill noted that Council President John Lyda has said in the past that he did not want to do business with Broad Metro CEO William Kadish once he learned Kadish had a felony criminal record.

Massengill asked if these new guidelines were simply a matter of the city advancing good guidelines to promote good business or if they would be used as a weapon against developers such as Broad Metro.

Knighton said city officials sought input mostly from smaller developers, such as Watts Realty and Development, Hancock Construction, Kelley Landscape Architects and architects Chris Reebals and Tim Aho. Input was not sought from larger developers because they already have guidelines and standards to which they must adhere. He couldn’t remember who from Bluff Park was involved, but the team working on this tried to be as inclusive as they could.

Both Massengill and Schultz asked that the issue be tabled to allow more time for feedback from interested parties, but the council went ahead and voted 5-0 in favor of the new guidelines and standards. Lyda and Councilman Sam Swiney were absent.

Councilman Curt Posey, who led Monday’s meeting, replied to Massengill that Lyda is just one vote out of seven. “Unless you were hearing that from the entire body up here, I would not be concerned about the comments on one vote out of seven in terms of who can and cannot develop in Hoover,” Posey said.

Councilman Casey Middlebrooks said he reviewed the new guidelines and standards carefully and was satisfied with the answers he received to questions related to things such as permeable surfaces, accessibility for handicapped people and universal design.

The new guidelines and standards are effective immediately, Knighton said.

In other business Monday night, the Hoover City Council:

  • Declared Feb. 21-23 as the 2025 Severe Weather Preparedness Sales Tax Holiday, exempting certain items frequently purchased to prepare for storms from the city’s sales and use taxes during those days. See a list of those items here.
  • Accepted $100,000 from the Hoover Board of Education to cover half the cost of new bleachers at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium.
  • Amended the city’s 2025 budget to shift about $86,000 from various wastewater improvement projects to cover wastewater emergency repairs.
  • Amended the 2025 budget to allow the Hoover Police Department to use about $26,000 in federal money received for holding federal inmates in the Hoover Jail to purchase two more vehicle license plate readers for use in police vehicles. By purchasing two right now, the city was able to get two more free of charge, police Chief Nick Derzis said. The budget also was amended to allow the Police Department to use $5,000 for software that allows police to fly one of their drones remotely from anywhere in the country.
  • Agreed to pay Avery Landscape & Associates $141,103 to build a new sidewalk on Thornton Place to connect to an existing sidewalk on Thornton Drive that leads to Green Valley Elementary School. This stretch of sidewalk will be about one-tenth of a mile and includes an S curve on a hill.
  • Rejected a $56,808 bid from Stone & Sons Electrical Contractors for traffic signal and roadway lighting maintenance and authorized the mayor to negotiate a lower price because Stone & Sons was the sole bidder for the job.
  • Accept $22,440 from Shelby County to reimburse the city of Hoover for fuel and supplies used for emergency medical transport services in Shelby County.