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Photo by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Renovations to the trail at Jemison Park in Mountain Brook are in the final stages as the city plans to reopen the park in January.
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Photos by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Mountain Brook Fire Station No. 2 is slated to be rebuilt in 2024.
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Photos by Erin Nelson Sweeney
The new trail at Jemison Park has been rerouted to be more scenic. They are also wider and accessible for people in wheelchairs.
As the calendar turns to 2024, Mountain Brook residents can expect a continued schedule of improvements to their city, according to City Manager Sam Gaston.
“We get to do some exciting and good things that benefit the community and move the community forward,” he said. “It’s going to be an exciting year.”
New and improved nature trails
In January, Mountain Brook residents will be able to return to Jemison Park’s trail, said Shanda Williams, the city’s parks and recreation superintendent.
The newly designed and paved trail will be wider, longer and completely accessible for people in wheelchairs, she said.
“The trail was rerouted closer to the creek to take advantage of higher ground and more scenic views, while getting further away from the traffic noise,” Williams said. “This also allows the trail to meander more, giving more suspense on additional views and experiences around the next bend, where the old trail was a fairly straight path that wiggled around sewer manhole covers.”
Mountain Brook Mayor Stewart Welch said he’s also excited about the possibility of expanding the trails at Alabama Veterans Memorial Park, which is located at 100 Overton Access Road and was recently brought into the city’s park system as part of a partnership with the Alabama Veterans Memorial Foundation.
“It’s a beautiful park — a hidden gem,” he said.
The park already has a memorial wall with the names of Alabama veterans and several other moving attractions, Welch said. Local Boy Scouts have also helped build the paths there, and Welch hopes they might be able to come together to do some more projects, such as a nature trail.
“It’s an interesting piece of property — 22 acres and very hilly, so you’ve got some possibilities of doing some really windy trails, where you wind down and wind back up,” Welch said. “I hope we can make 2024 a big year for that park.”
Photos by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Mountain Brook Fire Station No. 2 is slated to be rebuilt in 2024.
Fire Station 2
Welch said he’s also excited about the new construction of Fire Station 2, which will replace the current building located at 3785 Locksley Drive.
The new station will be built just down the road, on the site of the former home of the Knesseth Israel congregation on Overton Road. Knesseth Israel made the decision to move their meetings to the home of their rabbi.
Gaston said the fire station project may be bid out in March or April and, with work likely to start in the summer. The construction would take about a year to complete.
Welch said it will be a state-of-the-art station and that the building process would be much smoother than the last time a station was rebuilt.
“The last time we did this, we had to rent space and build a temporary holding station so we could tear the old station down and rebuild on that spot,” he said. “Because of the way we’ve done this, they’ll remain in the old fire station until they’re ready to move the trucks over. Our architects have gone to conferences and learned best practices that have been incorporated into this.”
Welch said this project will take care of that station for 50 years or more.
“It’s a big leap forward,” he said.
Gaston said he expects the old fire station building would be torn down and the property likely used as an extension of Overton Park.
Photos by Erin Nelson Sweeney
The new trail at Jemison Park has been rerouted to be more scenic. They are also wider and accessible for people in wheelchairs.
Sidewalk projects
This year, the city will be working on sidewalks on Montclair Road, from Ramsey Park to Mountain Park condominiums, and on North Woodridge Road, from Robin Drive down to Locksley Drive.
“We’ve got 46 miles of sidewalks and walking trails now,” Gaston said. “When we finish Montclair, Pine Ridge Road and this one segment on North Woodridge Road, we’ll have close to 50 miles.”
Welch said the creation of the sidewalk master plan was “really visionary of the folks who were here at the time.”
“When it started, there were four sidewalks and they were not connected, just little stretches of sidewalk,” he said. “And then one of our residents, Nimrod Long, was very much involved in helping lay all that out.”
Welch said the sidewalks are “probably the most impactful project the city has ever done.”
“If you look at it, it is super well connected, it’s very well thought out and everywhere connects to somewhere else,” he said. “When we consider a project, we look at where it will connect to something else, so you continue to have flow. It’s a very community-oriented, community-driven project.”
Other projects
Gaston and Williams shared some additional projects to look for in 2024.
The roundabout project at Mountain Brook Village will likely start in the summer.
“The latest schedule now for the two roundabouts is to bid it out in March, hopefully award it and start work in June, so it will take 10-11 months,” Gaston said. “We will try to make sure it’s done at night.”
Some new improvements at Canterbury Park this year will include a new drinking fountain and a sidewalk around a portion of the playground for better accessibility.
A bridge at Old Brook Trail will likely be replaced, and the historical bridge on Canterbury Road will also receive work. Park furniture around the city will be repainted throughout the year.
Office Park will undergo incremental renovation. Because of the buildings’ historical nature as the first planned office park in the nation, the insides will be gutted and updated while the exteriors will be preserved.
In December, the city’s first autonomous mower began mowing fields at night at Crestline Elementary. If it works out well, more will be added at other schools.
Planning work will continue this year for the pedestrian bridge to cross Highway 280 at Hollywood Boulevard.
Welch said it’s “something that needs to be done and Birmingham, Homewood and Mountain Brook are 100% behind it and willing to put some resources behind it, but we need a lot of help from ALDOT.”
Construction will start when funding is complete, which could happen in 2024 but could also take longer, he said.
