Visions coming true: City borrows $85 million for 3 big projects

Soon after Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato was elected in 2016, one of the first things he did was revive plans for a new Interstate 459 interchange just west of South Shades Crest Road.

Another item on his to-do list was building a new arts center for the city.

He and the Hoover City Council ever since have been taking steps toward both of those goals — buying land and conducting studies. But the City Council in March took a big step forward by agreeing to borrow $85 million through a warrant issue to help pay for those projects, plus $20 million worth of improvements to Hoover Metropolitan Stadium.

Brocato said all three projects are very important and collectively should help shape the future of the city for the next 100 years.

The City Council vote on March 6 was unanimous concerning a new interstate interchange just west of South Shades Crest Road, and the council voted 6-1 regarding borrowing money to build an arts center and improving the Hoover Met. A final vote on March 20 for an $85 million warrant issue was unanimous.

The city actually received $93.3 million by issuing warrants but only had to borrow $85 million because people buying the warrants paid $8.76 million in premiums, and the city received an underwriting discount of about $425,000, records show.

Council President John Lyda said he believes these three projects will have an impact as big as or bigger than the recent expansion of the Hoover Metropolitan Complex in terms of economic impact and positioning the city for success in the future. The vote also gives the arts community something that is long overdue, Lyda said.

Councilman Casey Middlebrooks cast the lone no votes on borrowing money for the arts center and Hoover Met improvements. He said he favors the projects but didn’t feel good about borrowing money for them at this point without more specific plans ironed out.

The city is still in negotiations with the owner of the Patton Creek shopping center about building an arts center there, and final details about improvements needed at the Hoover Met are subject to talks with the Southeastern Conference, which hosts the SEC Baseball Tournament at the Met.

I-459 Interchange

The new Exit 9 interchange on I-459 actually is expected to cost about $120 million, including $5.5 million for land acquisition, $4.9 million for utility relocation, $3.5 million for preliminary engineering and $106 million for construction.

The city has an agreement with the state of Alabama that Hoover will pay $61 million, including all the costs for land acquisition, utility relocation and engineering and 44% of the construction cost. The state, administering federal money, would pick up the other $59 million in construction costs.

The Hoover City Council approved the agreement with the state on Jan. 3, and Gov. Kay Ivey signed it in February, City Administrator Allan Rice said.

The city already has spent $5.27 million to buy 22 acres on the northwest side of I-459 and 31.3 acres on the southeast side, but there still is a need to acquire some additional parcels, Rice said. That could take a few months, depending on how receptive the current property owners are, he said.

The next step will be utility relocation, which could potentially stretch into the next fiscal year, Rice said. The design process is still underway, and it probably will be five to seven years before the interchange is complete and open, he said.

Brocato said the new interchange will go a long way in improving traffic in the western portion of the city, particularly along South Shades Crest Road and Alabama 150. It also will help serve the new Everlee community that is under construction and is slated to contain 2,344 homes and a commercial district.

Karen Apel, president of the Russet Woods Homeowners Association, said she knows the new interchange is a huge expense, but she’s glad the mayor and City Council are willing to spend the money because it will really improve traffic for the 1,000-plus homes in Russet Woods, plus all the other communities in and around western Hoover.

“The traffic is just very frustrating,” Apel said. She and other residents have been waiting a long time to get some relief, “so I’m thrilled … I’m grateful. I think it’ll be a huge benefit.”

Not everyone is as happy. Numerous residents who live in an older community along Old Section Road off Alabama 150 objected to the proposed location of a road that would connect the interstate with Ross Bridge Parkway.

Josh Gough, who owns about four acres and has horses there, said he and his wife purchased a home there in July because it’s one of only a couple of places in Hoover where people can have horses. It’s an amazing and unique neighborhood, he said.

While they are new Hoover residents, many of the people who live there have been there 30, 40 or more years and don’t want to see their neighborhood destroyed, he said.

Danny Gammon, another resident of the area, said there’s no question that traffic relief is needed, but his biggest concern is that Hoover officials don’t see his little neighborhood as being worth protection. If a connector road is going to be built, he’d like the city and state to consider some privacy and noise abatement measures, he said.

Jennifer Gough said there are people there who are going to lose their homes, “and you don’t seem to care about those people at all.”

“Those people have nowhere to go. They can’t afford to go anywhere else,” she said. “No, we’re not Trace Crossings. No, we’re not Ross Bridge, but we are a community, and those people are important.”

Stuart Hicks said he has lived there since 1985 and has seen Hoover officials add more and more developments that have caused problems, and he said this new interchange and connector road are going to cause more problems.

“At some point in time, you have to say enough. You have to stop it,” Hicks said. “At some point in time, we’ve got to stop it. We have to stop electing people that are going to do this to us.”

Resident Ruth Staubitz said eight or nine people will lose their homes. “And it’s going to create a horrendous situation for the rest of us who are living there, and we’ve been living there a long, long time,” she said. “Instead of taking care of your citizens, you’re worried about putting in these gated communities, and it doesn’t even have the roadway to deal with all these people.”

Lyda said there’s no question that the new interstate interchange and connector roads are needed to help traffic move more smoothly.

“This is a high-priority project for the council and the mayor,” he said. “It’s a project that has been in the works since 2004 when [former Mayor] Tony Petelos was first elected. It just shows how long the process takes to come to fruition.”

People who live off Old Section Road and in other areas will have an opportunity to address more specific concerns regarding placement of the connector road and its impact when the Alabama Department of Transportation holds public involvement meetings to discuss designs late this summer, Lyda said.

Arts center

The council also plans to allocate about $17 million from the warrant issue to help pay for a new arts center, with an additional $3 million expected to be needed from other capital funds, Rice said.

The plan being discussed now is to include the arts center in a major redevelopment of the Patton Creek shopping center. The plan is for the owner of Patton Creek — The Necessity Retail REIT — to build the shell of the arts center and for the city of Hoover to lease the facility and do the internal buildout, Rice said.

The idea is to create a venue for touring Broadway plays, concerts, dance recitals and similar performances, while also having some display space for the visual arts and potentially some teaching space for visual artists, city officials have said.

Additionally, the plans include space for a 3.4-acre park in front of the arts center that could serve as a location for outdoor events.

Pam Sayle, a member of the Hoover Arts Council and owner of the Alabama Dance Academy in Hoover, said she has watched the city of Hoover pour money into sporting events and facilities for decades and neglect the arts.

She couldn’t imagine officials telling football players in Hoover they have to go to Thompson High School in Alabaster to play football because they have a field and Hoover doesn’t, but that’s exactly what has happened to dancers in the city, she said.

“Every athlete has a place to play, but dancer athletes do not,” Sayle said. “I think this is unacceptable for the city for the size that we are. … These children go to school here. They worship here. They can’t dance here. And I have watched other communities build schools with state-of-the-art theaters. That’s where we have to go to perform. We go to Birmingham. We go to Thompson High School. We go to Oak Mountain High School because all of those places have better theaters.”

There is not a theater in Hoover that can accommodate her students’ performances, she said. At the March 6 council meeting, she implored the council to “do right by them” and borrow the money for an arts center.

Brocato said he’s proud of the City Council for approving the funding to make the arts center happen. “I think there’s a lot of excitement in our city over this. It’s long overdue,” he said.

He also thanked all the people in the community who have worked hard to keep the vision for such a center in the forefront of discussions.

Councilman Curt Posey, who is the council’s liaison to the Hoover Art Council, said he is thrilled to finally be able to move forward with this project that has been talked about and debated for many years. City officials have worked hard to do their due diligence in planning for an arts center, and now it’s time to move forward with it, he said.

Paulette Pearson, chairwoman of the Hoover Arts Council, said she and others in the arts community are thrilled. “For years, we’ve been working on this, and it’s really, really going to happen,” Pearson said.

The vote for funding was a crucial step that will help the city in its negotiations with Patton Creek as the leading potential site, she said.

Middlebrooks said city officials have been in talks with the owner of Patton Creek for 1½ years, and negotiations for a lease keep dragging on. He knows an arts center is needed and believes it will spur economic development but didn’t feel good about borrowing $17 million for an arts center without a signed lease, he said.

Rice said borrowing the money does not obligate the city to move forward with the arts center. The resolution to borrow the money was worded to state that it is the city’s intention to use the money for an arts center, but the city can use the money for other things, and the council would be the body to decide on any alternate use of the funds, he said.

Also, the city is not obligated to build an arts center in Patton Creek, Rice said. While city officials believe that is the optimal place to build it, “that’s not the only place it can go,” Rice said.

If talks with Patton Creek were to break down, the city has other ideas of where to look next, he said.

Brocato said that while some questions remain, “the project is definitely moving forward.”

Hoover Met improvements

The council also plans to use $15 million from the warrant issue for improvements to the Hoover Met Stadium, plus another $5 million in other capital funds, Rice said. The project includes significant improvements to the parking lot, in particular a redesign to help people more clearly and safely navigate their way around the parking areas at the stadium, Rice said.

Other improvements under consideration include upgrades to the seating area, concourse, concession stands and restrooms, Rice said.

One potential renovation would be to replace all the aluminum bleacher seating in the general admission section with stadium seats — something the Southeastern Conference is requesting for the SEC Baseball Tournament, Posey and Rice said.

The city also on its own is considering reconfiguring the concession stands so that they face the playing field instead of the interior concourse so fans don’t lose their view of the games while going to get concessions, Rice said.

Other projects deemed worthwhile include creating a new ticket entry gate from the lower parking lot to the left field area and creating a partial boardwalk area in the outfield to allow for some fun game observation and hospitality space, Rice said.

But details of the Hoover Met improvements are still dependent on talks with the SEC about what that organization wants to see, he said.

Paul Dangel, director of sales and marketing for the Hyatt Regency Birmingham — The Wynfrey Hotel, encouraged the council to borrow the money for all three projects but especially the improvements to the Hoover Met Stadium.

It’s important for the stadium to be able to meet the needs of the SEC because there are a host of cities that have tried to get the SEC Baseball Tournament to relocate to them, Dangel said. Having the tournament in Hoover has a significant impact on the economy through hotel stays and purchases at restaurants and retail stores, he said.

“That business is all but irreplaceable to us,” he said.

Paul Sanford, a former member of the Hoover Parks and Recreation Board and chief financial officer for The Barber Companies real estate investment company, said the Hoover Met was the best facility of its kind in the country when it was built, but it has to continually be updated to keep up with the times and remain an attractive venue.

“This city is in an arms race,” he said. But reinvesting in the facility is worth it, he said.

Stormwater problems

Numerous residents told the council they like the projects that will be funded by this warrant issue and other projects in a five-year capital plan that was approved by the council on March 6, but several advised the council

it needs to invest more in stormwater management.

Kathi Thomas, a resident of Trace Crossings, said it has been well documented that stormwater problems have caused a lot of havoc in the city.

“People have died. People’s homes have been destroyed. People’s cars have been destroyed, and there’s not a long-term plan,” Thomas said. “Is the health and safety and well-being of people who live here not as important as a center for the arts?”

Schoel Engineering came up with a list of recommendations for stormwater drainage improvements, and those should be a part of the city’s capital plan, Thomas said.

Larry Wojciechowski, a board member for the Southlake Estates Residential Association, said the council needs to take a hard look at stormwater management.

“We are suffering,” Wojciechowski said. “There are people who are experiencing tens of thousands of dollars of damage every time we have a couple inches of rain.”

Thomas Van Ness of the Paradise Acres community said it’s great to see projects that will help the city grow economically, but there are serious stormwater problems that need to be addressed. Stormwater is filling up Hoover’s lakes with sediment, Van Ness said.

“These lakes have limits, and as more and more mud and trash and trees and wood come down from the mountain into the Cahaba River, we have a problem,” he said.

Economic development is great, but there has to be a balance to make a great community, Van Ness said.

“It really takes making a place where people can live and people can feel like they are living safely and their property will not be destroyed,” he said.

Lyda said there are a lot of needs in the city, and this council believes it is addressing the most pressing needs.

The city’s engineers and attorneys have worked over the last few years to determine the dividing line between stormwater drainage problems that are the city’s responsibility and those that are property owners’ responsibility, “and we’re well-positioned with where we are on that,” Lyda said.

Some people disagree with the city’s position on that issue, he said.

Posey said some of the people who have reported stormwater problems have filed legal claims against the city, and once such a claim is filed, it slows down the process of mitigating the problem. Everything related to those problems must go through the city attorney’s office first, he said.

In cases where people have not filed claims against the city, the city can more easily and more quickly come up with public-private partnerships to address issues, Posey said.

The City Council likely will take another look at the status of stormwater projects when it does its mid-year budget review soon, he said.