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Hoover council votes to pay $2 million to USS Real Estate for 31 acres

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Map provided by city of Hoover

The Hoover City Council tonight voted to pay up to $2 million to USS Real Estate to buy 31.3 acres off South Shades Crest Road across from Brock’s Gap Parkway.

The land is between South Shades Crest and Interstate 459, and city leaders say they will need part of it for a new I-459 interchange they want to pursue just west of South Shades Crest Road.

Hoover Councilman Curt Posey said he believes a new interstate interchange will take a lot of traffic off Alabama 150 between Ross Bridge Parkway and Stadium Trace Parkway.

Councilman Mike Shaw said he also thinks it will help alleviate some of the traffic congestion on South Shades Crest Road, which was one of the biggest complaints he heard when he was running for city council this past year.

“I think it’s one of the top issues we can address, and this is our opportunity to move forward,” Shaw said. “It’s kind of exciting to move forward on this.”

City Administrator Allan Rice said the next step toward an interchange is to resubmit the request to the Birmingham Metropolitan Planning Organization, which decides how federal highway dollars are spent in the Birmingham-Hoover metro area.

Also, the city must move toward acquisition of additional property on the north side of Interstate 459, Rice said. City officials are proposing to extend Ross Bridge Parkway across Alabama 150 to I-459 and then hook into South Shades Crest Road across from the end of Brock’s Gap Parkway.

City officials see about five parcels that would need to be purchased either completely or in part to build the extension of Ross Bridge Parkway to I-459, Rice said. 

When asked if the price of land on the north side of I-459 just increased, Rice said “Who knows? You’ve got to start on one end or the other.”

Rice said city officials really don’t believe they will need all of the 31.3 acres they are buying from USS Real Estate, but they don’t know yet which exact piece of the property they will need. If any remaining land still can be developed, he could envision subdividing it and putting it on the market, he said.

Fred Herman, a nearby resident, said that a decade or so ago, some thought was given to building the interchange at South Shades Crest Road instead of a point just west of there. At that time, state officials were saying South Shades Crest Road was too close to the Alabama 150 interchange, but now the state is saying it’s not too close, Herman said.

He recommends the city build the interchange at South Shades Crest and put a second one at Hartwood Road.

Shaw said regardless of whether the city gets approval for an interchange and uses the USS Real Estate land to make it happen, residents should feel better knowing that the city will have control over this 31.3 acres instead of USS Real Estate controlling it.

USS Real Estate in the spring of 2015 tried to get 26 acres of this 31.3-acre parcel rezoned from industrial use to commercial use to make way for a Walmart Neighborhood Market and gasoline station, but neighbors staunchly objected. The City Council in April 2015 unanimously rejected USS Real Estate’s request.

The company came back to the Planning and Zoning Commission in October, seeking to amend the Trace Crossings development plan so that property and other property in Trace Crossings zoned for restricted industrial use would be rezoned so it could only be used for commercial or office space. Residents again fought the rezoning and got it tabled.

Posey and Councilman Derrick Murphy said that an interstate interchange alone will not fix the problems on South Shades Crest Road. Something more must be done, they said.

“There’s no other way around it,” Posey said.

In other business tonight, the Hoover City Council:

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