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Photo by Jon Anderson
More than 100 people showed up for the "Party for the Preserve" on the Village Green in The Preseve Town Center in Hoover, Alabama, on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
More than 100 people showed up for the "Party for the Preserve" on the Village Green in The Preseve Town Center in Hoover, Alabama, on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
More than 100 people showed up for the "Party for the Preserve" on the Village Green in The Preseve Town Center in Hoover, Alabama, on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
More than 100 people showed up for the "Party for the Preserve" on the Village Green in The Preseve Town Center in Hoover, Alabama, on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
More than 100 people showed up for the "Party for the Preserve" on the Village Green in The Preseve Town Center in Hoover, Alabama, on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
More than 100 people showed up for the "Party for the Preserve" on the Village Green in The Preseve Town Center in Hoover, Alabama, on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023.
More than 100 people came out to the “Party for the Preserve” in The Preserve subdivision Sunday evening.
It looked a lot like a big family reunion, with people spread out on the Village Green park in the middle of the community, a bounce house, a guy playing music on a guitar and a bunch of people wearing matching T-shirts.
But if you checked out what was written on the T-shirts, it was clear these people are on a mission: to “Preserve The Preserve” from a proposed revision to the development plans for the community.
USS Real Estate has wanted to develop a commercial center in The Preserve about 25 years, but the effort has had many starts and stops over the last three decades and has frequently been the center of much controversy.
It’s no different this time as plans surfaced in August of this year to change the development plan for the mixed-use part of The Preserve to allow 295 residential rental units, 38 townhomes, a 40-room boutique hotel, 49,200 square feet of retail space and 943 parking spaces.
A large portion of The Preserve Town Center already is zoned for commercial use with 69,000 square feet of office and retail space approved, but Capstone Communities sought to rezone part of the property, redesign the development and add residential rental uses that had not been previously approved.
A public hearing initially was set with the Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission for Sept. 11, but developers asked for a continuance until Oct. 9 after many residents voiced major objections. Capstone Communities wanted time to evaluate comments the company received at three town hall meetings held at The Preserve Town Hall in the two weeks leading up to the public hearing, according to an email sent out by the Preserve Owners Association.
Then, this past Friday, Capstone Communities withdrew its request from the Oct. 9 zoning board agenda but plans to resubmit the request when a traffic study is complete and revisions are made, the city’s zoning clerk said in an email to a resident of The Preserve.
That resident, Christine Botthof, was one of the organizers of Sunday’s get-together on the Village Green.
Photo by Jon Anderson
More than 100 people showed up for the "Party for the Preserve" on the Village Green in The Preseve Town Center in Hoover, Alabama, on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023.
Botthof said she believes the delay is just a tactic by Capstone Communities to lull residents voicing objections into complacency so the company can come back with its proposal when residents have cooled off and forgotten about it. But “we will never be sleeping,” Botthof said.
They’re going to pay close attention and will be ready to fight the proposal when it resurfaces, she said.
Capstone’s proposal, while welcomed by some, caused quite a stir with other residents in and around The Preserve.
Prior to the original public hearing date, the city received at least 75 emails regarding the plan, and the majority of emails were against the proposed changes, a city staff member said.
DIVIDED COMMUNITY
Some residents say they love the plan and have been looking forward to new commercial options near their home for years, but others say putting apartments, a hotel and 943 parking spaces, including a 292-space parking deck, in The Preserve community, changes the essence of what their community is all about.
Botthof, who has lived in The Preserve for 16 years, started an online petition to oppose the plan that had gained more than 4,200 signatures as of Sunday night.
Botthof said she is in favor of progress, additional retail in The Preserve and beautifying the community but is against apartments, a hotel and a “massive” parking deck there.
Residents always knew a commercial town center was planned, including a potential grocery store and restaurants, but these other elements were not part of the plan and don’t fit in The Preserve, Botthof said.
“We were waiting for all this retail to come, but what we were not expecting was to be blindsided by 300-something rentals,” she said.
Apartments mixed in with retail would fit much better in a place like the Patton Creek shopping center, which is closer to major thoroughfares and not in the middle of a single-family neighborhood, she said.
“No one can give us a concrete answer as to why this development is good for this particular intersection in Hoover,” Botthof said. “We are a neighborhood.”
Photo by Jon Anderson
More than 100 people showed up for the "Party for the Preserve" on the Village Green in The Preseve Town Center in Hoover, Alabama, on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023.
DEVELOPER MINDSET
Louis Nequette of Nequette Architecture and Design, which is handling the design work for this plan, said in a video his company has been passionate about placemaking for more than 20 years and involved in numerous mixed-use, dynamic town centers.
“Our goal is to simply create places that bring people together and create community,” Nequette said. “We’re excited to be part of this project to do just that.”
USS Real Estate, the master developer of The Preserve, and Capstone Communities, which is proposing to handle development of the Town Center, have numerous goals in mind with this development, Nequette said in the video.
They want to create more places for people to eat and shop while also maintaining the character, energy and beauty of what The Preserve has been able to create over the last 20 years, he said.
They need to make sure there is enough parking, provide smooth traffic flow, protect the “magic” of the adjacent 350-acre Moss Rock Preserve nature park and its boulder fields, and provide more privacy for the “Village Green” park that already is present in the town center by shielding it from traffic along Preserve Parkway with the addition of townhomes along the parkway, he said Now, the “Village Green” is directly adjacent to the parkway.
The developers, in their application to the city, say the mixed-use components of the plan are necessary for the development to thrive.
Nequette in the video said they want to provide people with a variety of residential options, from two-story townhomes to three-story apartment buildings and two-story and three-story mixed-use buildings with retail on the ground level and apartments above.
Adding the rental units draws in different generations of customers, such as young professionals and empty nesters, that will help the retail businesses survive because those types of people visit retail areas at different times of the day than families with children, Nequette said.
The developers also hope to protect the nature park and popular boulder field by increasing the required buffer between the boulder field and any buildings and putting residential property closer to the park than the retail areas, he said.
Photo by Jon Anderson
More than 100 people showed up for the "Party for the Preserve" on the Village Green in The Preseve Town Center in Hoover, Alabama, on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023.
LONG HISTORY
When USS Real Estate first sought rezoning for The Preserve in 1999, it was asking for mixed use, with 50,000 square feet of commercial space and 50,000 square feet of offices included. But people in nearby neighborhoods objected to having commercial development in The Preserve at all. The Planning and Zoning Commission rejected the proposal, and in November 1999, an all-residential plan was approved by the City Council.
But USS Real Estate came back in 2003 when there was a different mayor and City Council and, with a 3-2 vote, was able to get approval for mixed uses, including shops and offices on bottom floors and condos on the top floors. No single store could be greater than 15,000 square feet.
The first phase of the commercial sector came in 2007 on the south side of Preserve Parkway, and it now includes the Vecchia Pizzeria & Mercato, Moss Rock Tacos & Tequilas, Moss Rock Pharmacy, Stone Salon and USS Real Estate office, but no more commercial development has taken place.
The Hoover City Council in November 2018 approved a zoning change that would allow a grocery store occupying up to 29,000 square feet in the Town Center, but the grocery store never materialized.
Barbara McCollum was on the Hoover City Council when the all-residential plan was approved for The Preserve in 1999 and was mayor when the amended plan for mixed uses was approved in 2003.
She came to Sunday’s Party for the Preserve and said the new proposal goes against the original development plan that was approved and the city’s original intent for the community. Both the proposed apartments and hotel don’t match the original intent, McCollum said. Green space was such an important part of the original plan, too, and this proposed revision would replace some of the current Village Green with townhomes, she said.
Additionally, USS Real Estate at one point sought to raise the maximum number of residential dwellings in The Preserve from 725 to 750, and that proposal failed, McCollum said. Adding the number of rental units Capstone Communities is proposing goes way beyond that, she said.
“This [The Preserve] is a jewel built in the city of Hoover, and I don’t want them to destroy it.”
Former Councilwoman Donna Mazur was there Sunday with McCollum and called the new proposal “a disgrace.” She hopes that whatever new traffic study is done for Capstone Communities is done honestly, she said.
Botthof said Capstone specializes in rental units, and residents will fight anything brought forward by Capstone. They believe Capstone and USS Real Estate tried to sneak the first proposal through quietly and don’t believe the companies have current residents’ best interest in mind, she said.
Capstone Communities on Sept. 28 shared a statement with the Hoover Sun, saying:
"Our goal is to serve people, build community and deliver exceptional experiences in every new project we take on, and the town center at The Preserve is no exception. We want to provide current and future residents and visitors new spaces to shop, dine and spend time together. Over the past several months, we’ve been intentional about listening to residents in the neighborhood and sharing project details through hosting three widely attended open house events. We are continuing to work closely with the Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission, Hoover City Council and other project partners to ensure the proposed community complements the existing neighborhood. We’ve temporarily pulled our proposal while we complete further research and will provide residents with additional insights upon its completion."
Editor's note: This article was updated on Sept. 28 with a statement from Capstone Communities.
