Tuscaloosa Development
 

The strip along Wallace Wade Dr. adjacent to Bryant-Denny Stadium will include a massive condo and shopping plaza. This plan looks really nice.

You can hover the mouse over the design to move East-West.

Link

^^^^ Me likey :)

That development looks great. It compliments the Bryant-Denny expansion quite well. Will this become Tuscaloosa's tallest building after completion?

I wonder when they'll break ground...

I doubt it'll be taller than the RBC tower in downtown. It doesn't appear to rise above the stadium, which is shorter than RBC.

It will be the tallest that is allowed since those buildings. They approved a special permit for this one and will be taller than any recent buildings and any in the future.

It will be 12 stories which obviously lifts the cities limitations.

very nice

This will actually be one of the few high end condo projects that could make it past the stage of just a pretty billboard advertisement. Convenience is key here, and too many of the proposed projects were not.

Convenience is putting a high price on a lot of the projects in Tuscaloosa. There are soooo many condo projects that are either going up, being planned, or have been completed less than a half mile from even the most outer fringes of campus. And lemme tell yah, they are EXPENSIVE.

Excellent find ! That is one of the best-looking proposed projects I've ever seen in Tuscaloosa. Any idea of the timetable ?

I hope they don't price themselves out of feasibility, like most of the downtown condo proposals did. This looks rather similar in scope
to the dead "Paramount" proposal downtown.

Being right by campus gives it a shot at any price, though.

I wonder how the height will compare with Rose, Tutwiler, and Verner towers ?

Anyway, it looks like the next 2-3 years should be very positive for "urban" development in the city.

I am not really sure. Here is a post from an Alabama football board that talks about it:

Now that the cat is out of the bag, I'll shine some light here. The Phi House is fine, so no worries.

I made a post months back hinting at what was to come, but didn't follow up because things grew stagnant for a while and our marketing plan was delayed.

This project is going to be AWESOME. I work for an agency who was hired to do the early concepting and marketing for it's advertising campaign, so we met with Dr. Witt, the City Council, and EVERYONE is on board. We had some kick-ass football related marketing that I just couldn't WAIT to show you guys, but not really sure if we've retained the advertising business past the early stages, because things quieted down so much in the off-season.

The only things going away are Stadium apartments, the Alabama Book Store (no new news here), and the Haleil (sp?) Foundation. Basically it runs from Univ. to the block Rama Jama's, which will remained untouched.

Gallette's is untouched. Dr. Witt stated that he understands Gallette's is a gameday tradition and it will forever remain untouched. Which is good, because I would have probably pulled an Ike Turner on him. (g)

The bottom-level retail is meant to attract sellers like Barnes and Noble and nice chain restaurants. The housing is meant to be not elite but very nice and have a hotel feel to it. There will also be 12th-floor penthouse-quality rooms available for purchase, which should be very, very nice.

It will be big for Tuscaloosa and big for UA.

This thing has the potential to be the finest football-related real estate project ever built. It will be 12 stories (the city hight limitations were lifted), and will be the first of it's kind, with imitations possibly to follow in places like South Bend and all over the country. It is RIGHT NEXT to BDS, so the location is absolutely unbeatable. And it's part of Dr. Witt's plan to move our campus forward and make it more attractive to prospective students.


I don't want to get into any more specifics, but the name we generated is perfect for the project and the advertising kick-off campaign we did was F'in great. You guys would've loved it. But Real Estate clients are real iffy in this business, so after Phase 1 of the campaign, it seems the developers (Spectrum Capital, an affiliate of Yates) have moved on because we haven't heard from them since the end of the '07 season. So don't know if they'll use what we came up with or not.

I find it interesting, also, that the university's plan to build a $10-million campus police/public safety building behind Publix has been delayed.
I wonder if university officials are reconsidering the location, now that the area is becoming a growing commercial district ?

Also in the Strip area, Surin West is going in where 12 Steakhouse was...

Its about time developers start building condos close to campus. It is such a pain to drive from Midtown or Crimson Place to class everyday...

University Mall/Midtown/Crimson Place/hospital/UA seems ideally suited for a bus route ?

Traffic is so fd up around the 15th/McFarland Blvd interchange, and so much of it is from people driving short distances to get where they're going, since there's no transit option and no decent pedestrian/bike access.

15th/McFarland has turned into Mobile's Airport Blvd. Im living in Crimson Place next year so that is kind of depressing since everything you need is close by but takes forever to get there. I would love it if the downtown area started building businesses that would interest me.

My aunt is a long-time resident of Cedar Crest, and used to walk everywhere.
Walking across 15th to the restaurants, or on over to the mall was no big deal years ago. Now, with all the lanes and congestion, there's no way she'd consider it.

I keep hoping downtown will get something rolling in the retail sector. There really is a ton of developable space just sitting there (Cityfest lot, Tuscaloosa Chevrolet lot on the river, Fire Station #1, block where Paramount development would've gone, block where 2300 Bryant Drive development would've gone, Corps of Engineers' acreage on the river, etc), easily accessible by interstate and close to the university campus.

Druid, I see you are representing Baldwin County. Where did you live down there?

My brother and I own a couple of rental condos in Daphne and Gulf Shores.
Plus, most of my dad's relatives are in the Mobile area, and my brother taught 3 years at USA.

I'm a lifelong Tuscaloosan, but I usually visit Gulf Shores a few times a year.

Cool, Ive lived in the Fairhope and Perdido areas and was just curios.

Downtown Fairhope is one of the most attractive "small town" areas around.
I think that's what Northport is basically trying to pattern after with its current downtown master plan.

Just read that Dillards is closing their McFarland Mall location in Tuscaloosa. This is pretty bad for McFarland Mall, it was in bad shape before, I wonder if they'll be able to find an anchor that would be willing to take a chance on that building that's in such disrepair.