Craft family donates 40 acres on County Rd. 8 to Gulf Shores for possible park or school

By John Mullen
Gulf Shores is putting a widening of Alabama 59 near Waterville on the fast track awarding a bid to increase the length of the turning lane into the amusement park. The Alabama Department of Transportation will fund the entire project which city officials expect to be just under $300,000.
“This $300,000 pays for both construction and inspection work to extend the left turn lane at Waterville from its current one-car queue to about an 11-car cue,” Public Works Director Mark Acreman said.
Also during Monday’s meeting, the council heard a progress report on the upcoming Hangout Music Festival and issued an assembly permit for the ninth year. The council also agreed to accept a donation of 40 acres from the Craft family on County Road 8 and agreed to pay for all the deed and title work to make the transfer to the city.
Mayor Robert Craft said the widening project would start a new trend of doing most road construction projects at night. Currently, there are several areas of the city with ongoing projects including beach road and the Alabama 59 bridge near Bayou Village.
“We’re trying to get all this construction work done and over as much as we can this year,” Craft said. “Everything from now on is going to be done at night. We’re not going to put the city in that situation again where we’ve got so many projects going on during the day.”

Originally the Waterville road work bid came in at $311,000, but Acreman said city staff worked with the company to get the price below what the state was willing to fund.

“We immediately entered into a value engineering negotiation with McElhenney Construction and was able to reduce the contract amount to $258,011 which pushed back below the $300,000 budget,” Acreman said. “We’ve already awarded Volkert a contract not to exceed $46,562 for inspection testing as well as permitting for this project.”

Acreman said the reduction came from eliminating some contingency work ALDOT had in the proposal and limiting impacts to sidewalks and landscaping affected by the project. ALDOT will fully reimburse the city for the costs of the project.

“That would let us take the lead on a project they weren’t able to get to in a timely manner,” Acreman said. “We hope to get them started by (March 9) and they will have to be completed by May 1.”

Hangout 2018
Festival organizers and city staff are ready for their 60-day meeting and Recreation and Cultural Affairs Director Grant Brown said the city and festival producers learn something new with each year. Dates this year for the festival are May 17-20.
“We’re excited about the ninth music festival coming to Gulf Shores,” Brown said “It gets better every single year. We get to be more efficient and we get better and better every year.”
Some dates being talked about with site usage for the festival have had some residents concerned, Craft said.
“I’ve already had a couple of calls about the site usage from April 26 to May 26,” Craft said. “People in the public are thinking we have expanded the music festival a few weeks to a month. It’s not that much different than what we’ve done before. There seems to be a lot of sensitivity that we’ve expanded the event. We haven’t. We’ve contracted the event a little bit. It’s not clear to the public and it’s confusing.”
Brown said getting a jump start on the build-up for the festival is essential for the organizers and the city.
“By allowing them to get a little bit ahead and the city taking advantage of their assets they are bringing in truly helps both of us to allow that to happen,” he said.
Craft said some citizens are against having the festival in town but he believes it is safe and has benefits for Gulf Shores.
“There’s segment of our community that worry about this and worry about this event,” he said. “I’m not one of them. The people who come in wear their costumes, they’re having fun and when you look at them you don’t realize they are young professionals. They’re not 15- to 18-year-olds, they’re 25- to 28-year-olds.”
Festival director Sean O’Connell gave a report on some small changes for the 2018 festival and said metal detectors will be used for the first time.
Land donation
At a recent meeting, the council accepted a donation of 40 acres on County Road 8 from the Craft family and it will eventually cost about $19,000 to handle the closing costs and other paperwork on the transaction, City Administrator Steve Griffin said.
“Since Jan. 29 we’ve been working with the attorneys and finding out that some of the costs that we estimated to be $5,000 are closer to $19,000 in the preparation of the deed, getting the IRS documents in place, etc.,” Griffin said.
Griffin said 80 percent of all building permits issued by the city are for lots north of the Intracoastal Waterway. The donated is halfway between Alabama 59 and the Foley Beach Express on the south side of the road.
County Road 8 is a fast-growing residential area and a new subdivision with 194 lots is being proposed south of this parcel. A road through the donated parcel to the new subdivision is being studied.
“This 40-acre tract provides I think the city council the opportunity for the construction of a new elementary school or a new park site,” Griffin said. “There are a lot of transportation projects planned around that site. Right now, we have County Road 8 widening work going on.”
In other business. the city council:
• Accepted a proposal from Volkert, Inc. to perform habitat mapping and functional assessments on land acquired through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation as part of the Bon Secour/Oyster Bay wetlands project. The survey will cost the city $72,000.
• Offered up items in the spring surplus sale. They will be available through March 19 on govdeals.com. Items for sale vary from electronics, automobiles, exercise equipment, shelving and other furniture.
• Agreed to buy four dump trailers from Baldwin Tractor and Equipment for $18,800 to replace homemade ones the city uses in its beach recycling and trash pickup program.
• Approved liquor license applications for the Hampton Inn on Alabama 59, the Sunliner Diner on Alabama 59 two blocks north of the beach, the Zydeco Crawfish Festival and a transfer of the Rite Aid liquor license to Walgreen’s.
• Granted an assembly permit to Papa Rocco’s for the annual St. Patrick’s Day pub crawl in the beach district.
• Reappointed David Chapman to the Parks and Recreation Board for another six-year term. His term expires on March 14 and he has agreed to serve another.