The article on the courthouse condo site...
Vision of 21-story downtown condo unveiled
Friday, March 30, 2007By DAN MURTAUGHStaff Reporter
A lush, 21-story beige condominium building overlooks a fountain pool surrounded by trees in a conceptual drawing based on Mobile County Commission President Juan Chastang's vision for the old courthouse site in downtown Mobile.
Chastang and John Stainback -- the head of a development firm the county paid to come up with the drawing -- presented the sketch to Mobile Mayor Sam Jones on Thursday, hoping to create a consensus on developing the now-vacant property.
In addition to the condo tower and fountain, the drawing includes a new vision for the nearby Probate Court building. Instead of adding three more stories to the building, Stainback would demolish the current building and create a new one with office space for government and private use.
The first floors of both buildings would be filled with retail space, and a restaurant with a large outdoor eating area would be situated next to the fountain.
The county would contract with a private firm to build the development at an estimated cost of between $85 million and $100 million, said Stainback, president of Stainback Public/Private Real Estate.
The county would reap between $500,000 and $750,000 per year in lease fees, and the complex would create about $1 million per year in both property tax and sales tax revenue, Stainback said.
The property has been a source of contention between city and county leaders since April, when Chastang announced that he wanted to build a condominium tower on the site of the old Mobile County Courthouse, west of Royal Street and between Government and Church streets in downtown Mobile.
Prior to that, the county had planned on building a Mardi Gras-themed park on the site, which would include a fountain or water feature of some kind.
When Jones was a commissioner in 2002, the commission voted to build the park once the courthouse was torn down in 2006.
Jones has steadfastly opposed the development plan since Chastang announced it.
The link to an adobe version of the front page of the register with a rendering is below.
http://www.al.com/press-register/pageone/friday1a.pdf
The picture gets a little distorted when you zoom. I like the look of the building itself, but with the pool and all it looks like it belongs at Gulf Shores, not downtown Mobile. I also thought it was dumb/rude to present this to Mayor Jones, in an attempt to get him on board, and the renderings don't inculde space for the park that Jones wants on the site. I think the park and the retail/condo thing are great ideas. After seeing the renderings, I think that project would be more than downtown could handle as far as condo units. Not everyone who wants a downtown condo wants it in a big brand new building like the ones at the Gulf. This project creates alot of very similar units, maybe more than the market can handle. I also feel like the office space parts of the project are also unnecessary at the moment. We still haven't seen if the RSA Tower's addition to existing office space downtown can be supported. If it was my choice, I say build the park and let the CSX site do condos. All that hinges on a big "if", which is whether or not the CSX condos ever happen. I think we can support one cond/office/retail project, but two at one time seems like a little much.
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. That idea sounds fantastic and I would have never thought of that. I think the city could then take that money and turn it around for some parking decks(preferably like the new ones in Charleston that are hidden within the interior of a block with very discreet entrance/exits). Those service lots are really putting a halt to downtown development because alot of them are located right off the Dauphin corridor. They were fine when Dow started the string of pearls b/c they provided parking near the on redeveloped area. Now they are preventing the spread of development outside of that area.
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