Mobile City Council sets stage for Civic Center redevelopment

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - The City Council on Tuesday adopted an overall master plan for the Civic Center that leaves many of the details for a later date.

Still, approval of amendments to the Downtown Development District in the current zoning ordinance is significant for the aging complex given how long its future has been discussed without consensus by city leaders.

“There are some things I never thought I would see in my lifetime,” District 5 Councilman Joel Daves said at Tuesday’s meeting. “An agreement on the Civic Center site is one I thought I would never see in my lifetime.”

Daves called it a “remarkable achievement” that will “set us down the road to doing something there on a permanent basis.”

The new rules governing Civic Center redevelopment will apply the same zoning rules that govern the rest of downtown. Those rules will require the design of new buildings to fit with the surrounding neighborhood.

It will allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to press ahead with plans for a six-story office building and parking garage on gthe northwest corner of South Claiborne and Canal streets. District 2 Councilman William Carroll said construction could begin in March.

As to the rest of the property, the future is more open-ended. Carroll said the rules allow for a range of possibilities, from a comprehensive redevelopment that could cost the city $200 million to a piecemeal approach in which individual developers submit proposals for one parcel at a time.

Those decisions will be made at a later date.

“It gives us that flexibility to do quite a few things with the site to make some great improvements to the area,” Carroll told FOX10 News. “I mean, whether it’s single-family development on Lawrence Street or a small restaurant, cut into the property somewhere behind the Civic Center, or hotel on the site.”

As part of the process, the council adopted an amendment offered by Carroll that the councilman described as correcting a clerical error. District 4 Councilman Ben Reynolds voted “no,” complaining that the council had not had time to review the changes.

“Everybody’s moving around and going in and out and, you know, coming up with some plan that I don’t know what it is,” he said.

Later, Reynolds told FOX10 News that he disagrees Carroll’s characterization that the changes are not substantive. He suggested that the council violated the law, which requires any change to be advertised for a 30-day period before voting.

Reynolds said Carroll and District 6 Councilman Scott Jones were asking the council to adopt the changes based on “trust and goodwill.” He said he had been prepared to vote for the proposal as originally advertised, even though he is not thrilled with the proposal for the Corps of Engineers building.

Still, supporters said the zoning is a step forward. Downtown Mobile Alliance President and CEO Elizabeth Stevens said the rules will protect the integrity of the neighborhood.

“We feel like all property owners ought to be operating, that are in downtown, ought to be operating under the same rules and not easier rules for somebody who comes in and gets the develop the Civic Center site,” she said.

Stevens said she is not concerned that those architectural requirements could hinder development and limit the city’s options for the site.

“It hasn’t hindered the development of downtown,” she said. “We’ve had hundreds of millions of dollars of development since it was adopted in 2014 – new construction, renovation, all types of development.”

Although many details and decisions remain to be made, council members on Tuesday said the long-range vision has been set.

“It will be good to see something happening on that property, and we all look forward to working on it,” District 7 Councilwoman Gina Gregory said from the dais.

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