Council rejects Post Office Pies proposal, moves forward with paving plan

The city council's finance committee chose to reject the most recent offer by West Homewood Development Group to build a Post Office Pies and townhomes at 165 Oxmoor Road. This decision was made after an executive session in the June 20 meeting to discuss the offer price, which was not publicly disclosed.

City attorney Mike Kendrick said he will continue working with the Development Group to find a proposal that works for both parties.

Later in the meeting, finance committee members and attending council members agreed that they would like to move forward with a street paving plan provided by Volkert Engineering. Mayor Scott McBrayer encouraged them to budget $2.3 million through fiscal year 2017 to mill and repave the worst streets identified by Volkert.

Those streets include segments of 28th and 29th Avenue South, 18th Street South, 16th Place, Park Ridge, Barber Court, College Avenue, Wellington Road, Ridge Road, State Farm Parkway, Clermont Drive, Hall Avenue, South Forrest Drive, Columbiana Road, Tamworth Lane, Devon Drive, Brookwood Medical Plaza Drive, Independence Court, Briscoe Road and Shadow Lawn Drive, said J.J. Bischoff, the mayor's chief of staff. Each of these segments is under a mile in length.

After completing the C-grade streets — which is expected to take longer than FY 2017 due to the bidding and construction process — the council then wants to move on to maintaining and protecting its A and B-grade streets with crack seals, microsurfacing and seal coats. All of this, McBrayer said, is a plan to bring Homewood's streets up to a higher standard and maintain that standard longer.

This pavement plan is paired with a recent Homewood ordinance requiring utility companies to improve the patching system used to repair cuts made into city streets. Homewood has a new system to monitor these patches and make sure they hold up for at least one year after being placed.

The council plans to set a request for bids at its June 27 meeting. Given time for bids to be submitted and selected, it's possible for some paving to begin later this summer or fall.

This article was updated at 2:46 p.m. on June 28 with a more complete list of streets to be milled and repaved.