Council votes to purchase land for access road

The Vestavia Hills City Council held a specially called meeting Monday and voted in favor of a purchase and sale agreement for 1.2 acres off of Acton Road.

The agreement would pave the way for a public access road from Acton Road to the former Altadena Valley Country Club, which will eventually be home to multiple parks and recreation facilities.

City Manager Jeff Downes said the need for a westerly entrance emerged after citizens and engineers expressed concerns that using the current entrance would be costly and difficult to upgrade, and the proximity to a S-shaped intersection could be dangerous. The new access road would be closer to Interstate 459 and would also eliminate the need for soil borrowing to support a future residential development.

The agreement with International Park Meisler-Keith, LLC will ultimately be a public-private partnership with a total cost of just under $1.5 million.

The phase voted on Monday is for the land purchase agreement, with a price tag of $495,000 for the approximately 1.2 acres of land the road will eventually occupy.

Meisler-Keith is purchasing a total of about 40 acres of land to be developed commercially.

Because the parcel of land goes through Vestavia, Hoover and Jefferson County and because the agreement involves a third party owner, Downes said the negotiations were complicated, and did not come to a close until last week.

While Downes and Council members noted that there were concerns that this item was coming up unusually quickly at a special meeting, Downes said that because the contract closes on Wednesday, the city’s chance of making the westerly entrance happen has a small window.