✕
☰

Council chooses contractor for 18th Street beautification project

by

Rendering courtesy of city of Homewood.

The City Council selected a contractor at tonight's meeting for the 18th Street South "streetscape" project that has been under discussion since 2015.

The streetscape project will include landscaping, sidewalks, on-street parking and a redesign of 18th Street's lanes from roughly 28th Avenue South to Rosedale Drive. Ward 1 Representative Britt Thames, who has been a main driver of the project, said the city is also adding a right turn lane from eastbound Valley Avenue onto 18th Street within Homewood's city limits.

"It's going to change that whole situation," Thames said of the intersection, which frequently experiences heavy traffic.

The City Council voted unanimously to contract with Goodwyn Mills Cawood, which has been involved with the streetscape project for Homewood since the beginning of conceptual designs and cost estimates. Goodwyn Mills Cawood also had to be approved by ALDOT, which is working with the city on the project.

The contract with GMC is $291,344, Thames said. The total cost of the project was estimated at $1.2 million in 2015, but the city sought Transportation Alternatives Program and CMAQ grants to offset the cost.

Thames said 2018 will mostly be taken up by design work for the project, as the 2015 drawings are only conceptual. Construction will begin in 2019, as some of the grant funding comes with an expiration date, he said.

"You won't see any dirt being moved until the new budget year," Thames said.

Also tonight, the City Council set an April 9 public hearing to discuss and vote on changes to the zoning book's roof height restrictions for homes in the Neighborhood Preservation District.

City Planner Vanessa McGrath said at a March 5 planning and development committee meeting that the Building, Engineering and Zoning Department has found the previous phrasing of "median front grade" to be difficult to determine on each lot.

The ordinance as it stands now requires homes to meet either the height restriction measured from threshold to roof peak (29 feet for homes on 55-foot or smaller lots, 35 feet for homes on larger lots) or as measured from median front grade to roof height (32 feet for homes on lots 55 feet wide or less, 38 feet for homes on larger lots), whichever is smaller.

The change that committee members discussed on March 5 would simplify the height restriction to only 32 feet for lots 55 feet wide or less and 38 feet for lots over 55 feet, but the main difference is in how the height will be measured. The measurement will now go from the center of the front exterior wall to the roof peak.

Members of the public can comment on the proposed changes prior to the vote on April 9. Read more about the discussion of home heights from the March 5 and Feb. 20 meetings.

The Council also:

Back to topbutton