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Image courtesy of city of Hoover
A Louisiana-based development company called the Stoa Group is asking the city of Hoover to rezone 24 acres in the Inverness Center North office park to accommodate 289 apartments and some restaurant and retail space along Inverness Center Parkway. The apartment buildings are to the left, and the restaurant and retail space is shown along the parkway.
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Image courtesy of city of Hoover
A Louisiana-based development company called the Stoa Group is asking the city of Hoover to rezone 24 acres in the Inverness Center North office park to accommodate 289 apartments and some restaurant and retail space along Inverness Center Parkway. The proposed apartment complex would be called The Heights at Inverness.
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Image courtesy of city of Hoover
A Louisiana-based development company called the Stoa Group is asking the city of Hoover to rezone 24 acres in the Inverness Center North office park to accommodate 289 apartments and some restaurant and retail space along Inverness Center Parkway. The proposed apartment complex would be called The Heights at Inverness.
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Image courtesy of city of Hoover
This is a sketch of the proposed restaurant and retail space proposed along Inverness Center Parkway, backing up to the lake in the Inverness Center North office complex.
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Image courtesy of city of Hoover
This is a sketch of the proposed restaurant and retail space proposed along Inverness Center Parkway, backing up to the lake in the Inverness Center North office complex.
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Image courtesy of city of Hoover
A Louisiana-based development company called the Stoa Group is asking the city of Hoover to rezone 24 acres in the Inverness Center North office park to accommodate 289 apartments and some restaurant and retail space along Inverness Center Parkway. The proposed apartment complex would be called The Heights at Inverness.
The Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday night recommended the Hoover City Council rezone about 40% of the Inverness Center North office park (24 acres) to accommodate 289 new apartments, 18,000 square feet of retail space and 15,000 square feet of restaurant space.
A Louisiana-based development company called Stoa Group wants to develop a four-story apartment complex called The Heights at Inverness on 15 vacant acres next to the three roughly 150,000-square-foot office buildings in the park, plus new restaurant and retail space along Inverness Center Parkway.
The proposal falls in line with the city’s comprehensive plan, which includes goals to transform aging office parks into mixed-use centers that include residential, retail, restaurant and office spaces.
Two of the 150,000-square-foot buildings in Inverness Center North are vacant, and the other is probably about 50% vacant, said Greg Knighton, Hoover’s economic development manager and a member of the zoning board.
The thinking is that many companies today are looking for locations that allow their employees to live nearby and have other places to shop and eat within walking distance.
This particular site is between the Inverness Center North office park and the 77-acre Inverness Nature Park. Just to the northwest is the Cahaba Grandview Apartments and Target store in Birmingham.
No one spoke against the proposal, but zoning board members had questions about whether the developer was planning enough parking spaces.
The plan calls for 456 parking spaces, which is 1.58 parking spaces for every apartment. Planning Commission Vice President Jennifer Peace, an engineer, said that’s about half as many parking space as is normally required for apartments.
Hoover City Planner Mac Martin said Hoover’s new parking regulations for mixed-use areas require only 1.5 parking spaces per residential unit, so this falls within that requirement. The developer also is proposing to have a cross-parking agreement with the office complex next door that would allow residents to park in an existing parking lot built for the offices.
Image courtesy of city of Hoover
A Louisiana-based development company called the Stoa Group is asking the city of Hoover to rezone 24 acres in the Inverness Center North office park to accommodate 289 apartments and some restaurant and retail space along Inverness Center Parkway. The proposed apartment complex would be called The Heights at Inverness.
Several zoning board members noted it could be a long walk if residents on the southeast side of the development ran out of parking spaces on their end of the complex.
Prescott Bailey, director of development for the Stoa Group, said his company believes the 456 parking spaces will be adequate to meet the need for apartment residents, based on their experience with about 25 other similar projects.
His company designs the complex with parking counts for each individual building in mind, he said. The cross-parking agreement is just some cushion to allow for any spillover, and people tend to naturally migrate toward the parking spaces close to their units, he said.
His company plans to invest $70 million in this apartment complex and wouldn’t be proceeding with this plan if it didn’t believe it would work, he said. “We do a lot of homework on that, and we have a lot of experience with it.”
Image courtesy of city of Hoover
This is a sketch of the proposed restaurant and retail space proposed along Inverness Center Parkway, backing up to the lake in the Inverness Center North office complex.
The Heights at Inverness is proposed to have an estimated 48% of its units with two bedrooms, an estimated 40% with one bedroom and no more than 10% with three bedrooms, Bailey said. The complex would have a 7,000-to-8,000-square-foot clubhouse, gym, coworking space, entertainment rooms and a dog washing area, he said.
A parking study anticipates a new left-turn lane will be necessary on Inverness Center Parkway, and the zoning board’s recommendation to approve was contingent on the Stoa Group providing that turn lane.
The Stoa Group also would be required to extend a nearby 10-foot-wide pedestrian path along Inverness Center Parkway along the portion of the parkway that fronts this development, Martin said. The city will pay to extend the portion of the path that is along adjacent property owned by the city, he said.
The zoning board’s actual vote was to recommend approval to rezone 24 acres from a planned office district to a planned commercial district and to allow for mixed uses on the property. The board’s vote to recommend approval was 7-0, and now the matter goes to the Hoover City Council for final consideration.
If the council approves the rezoning request, Bailey said the Stoa Group hopes to begin construction by the late second quarter of this year or early third quarter.
In other business Monday night, the zoning board:
- Approved a final version of the city’s new Parks, Public Spaces & Recreation Master Plan. The same plan is to be considered by the city’s Parks and Recreation Board Tuesday night, Feb. 13, and is headed to the City Council for consideration on Feb. 19.
- Approved final plans to divide a lot owned by Heritage Preschool Ross Bridge Development at 2700 Ross Bridge Parkway into two lots.
- Approved preliminary plans for the 11th phase of Blackridge South, which includes 58 single-family residential lots and a common area at the end of Butler Road.
- Approved a revised preliminary plan for Phase 1B of the Everlee community to convert four common area lots into residential lots, for a total of 47 new single-family residential lots in this phase.
- Approved a resurvey of Lots 301B and 301C on Lake Cyrus Club Drive to combine two lots into one.
