Gulf Shores to enhance roadways, parking in Beach District

Gulf Shores to enhance roadways, parking in Beach District

By John Mullen
City officials will be visiting with residents and business owners in the Downtown Beach District this fall to discuss changes coming in the form of a $4.4 million vitalization project.
On Aug. 26, the council voted to pay Volkert $424,000 to design the construction engineering and inspection, get the necessary state and environmental permitting and doing geotechnical testing on the areas affected. The project will be in the areas from beach road north two blocks to Second Avenue and will spread east to west from East Second Street to West Second Street.
“Once we get a final map drawn and analyzed and we believe its what we want to build – we did the same on Highway 59 – we will go down and go door to door and talk to everybody about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” Mayor Robert Craft said. “We’ll take input to make sure we can take their considerations into play. That worked really for us on Highway 59 when we modified all those turn-ins and outs and talked to every person affected.”
The entire project will include reworking roadways in the area and utilizing city rights of way to add space for parking. Craft says this is to encourage business growth in the area of town that was first platted for residential use.
“When we look at trying to do some kind of walking district allow for some development these are just really small lots,” Craft said. “And a really small lot to build something that requires parking. It’s very limited to what they can build and park.”
With this project, the city will essentially provide the parking for them.
“With us doing this with city money we are conceptually discussing allowing them to buy down their parking, pay us to build more parking in lieu of building parking on their property. Therefore, they’ve got the full lot that they have the opportunity to develop on.”
Public Works Director Mark Acreman said there are about 214 city parking spots in the district now and plans are to increase that to 324. That number could change, Acreman said, if there are unforeseen obstacles like utility placement.
“This is a conceptual plan and it is subject to change,” Acreman said. “It does show the basic intent as well as the volume of parking we hope to add to this whole the beach downtown area and walking district. We can have people that can come down and park and enjoy the existing businesses and we hope to see new businesses come to this area as a result of these improvements.”
Another part of the project that will help is the implementation of a stormwater master plan to handle runoff from heavy rains. With that in place, new businesses won’t have to plan for retention ponds to collect the water giving them more room to develop on the available space.
“We had a master stormwater plan that was completed last year and will be implemented as part of this project,” Acreman said. “That will allow for more urbanized development in the beachfront district.”
Gulf Shores is taking advantage of two grants and some cash from the Embassy Suites hotel partnership to pay for about $2 million of the project, Acreman said.
“We’ve been awarded an $800,000 TAP grant for the sidewalk components,” Acreman said. “We received a $60,000 ACAMP grant for the master planning for the stormwater system. Then there is the $1.2 million payment for parking improvements that will be provided through the Embassy Suites development agreement.”
The rest will part of the Public Works request in the 2020 budget year. The design phase is expected to take about 90 days or so with the bid letting period to follow.
“We would likely not start this type of construction project until next year,” Acreman said. “It’s going to have to be carefully scheduled and organized through the summer season as well as the construction phase of the Embassy Suites.”
This new project comes on the heels of the $15 million Gulf Place Revitalization Project which revamped a portion of Gulf Place and put parking and a public safety building on city-owned Gulf front west of the Regatta Condominiums.