
Emily Featherston
From the future of the city’s parks and recreation facilities to how the city will use social media, day one of the Vestavia Hills City Council’s annual strategic planning session included multiple items with long-term impact on the city and its residents.
City Manager Jeff Downes began the day-long session of discussion and presentations by walking the council through progress on the goals they set for 2017.
Many, Downes said, were accomplished in full or nearly so by Thursday’s meeting, including finally opening Meadowlawn Park and fleshing out the Community Spaces Plan.
Others, like the pedestrian bridge across U.S. 31 and working with Jefferson County on the intersection of Green Valley Road, didn’t make it as far.
“We took your priorities, and we tried to meet all of these,” Downes said. “And we did not get an A-plus, but we did achieve a lot of these.”
Citizen Survey
The session kicked off with a presentation by Jason Morado of ETC institute about the 2017 citizen survey the city conducted.
A random selection of 1,500 citizens were invited to complete the seven-page survey, and 638 completed it, which Morado said is above what the firm hoped for.
“We had a really, really good response,” Morado said.
While the overall satisfaction rating for city services was down from 2014 levels, Morado said, it was similar to 2011 ratings and still well above the national average for a city of Vestavia’s size.
Key indicators included 95 percent of respondents saying they are very satisfied or satisfied with the city as a place to raise children, and 71 percent saying they are satisfied or very satisfied with the value they receive for their tax dollars. Only a handful of cities nationwide receive a 70 or higher, Morado said.
On the other side of the coin, there are a few areas where Morado said the survey indicated citizens think the city can improve.
Stormwater infrastructure, conditions of roadways and traffic had higher levels of dissatisfaction than other areas, with up to 31 percent of respondents indicating they desired more from the city.
Respondents also indicated that there could be improvements with parks and recreation facilities.
Downes told the council he didn’t see anything that should be a surprise, but wanted them to have the data going into the discussions.
Community Spaces Plan
After delays due to project scope, the availability of data and uncertainty of what the Vestavia Hills Board of Education plans to do with its facilities, the highly-anticipated final proposal for the Community Spaces Plan was presented by TCU Consulting services on Thursday afternoon.
Principal Ken Upchurch refreshed the council and gathered crowd’s memories about the previous plan, which was completed in Nov. 2016, as a primer for his team’s final proposal.
He said they tried to address all of the major goals brought up during public forums in summer 2017, but in a manner that the council can choose which parts to implement based on finances and timing.
“We’ve tried to build our program as a ‘plug and play’ type solution,” Upchurch said.
The “linchpin” of TCU’s plan, Upchurch said, is the utilization of the current Gold’s Gym property, which the city purchased last year, as a new multi-purpose facility.
Both athletic and meeting uses for the space were outlined in TCU’s schematics presented Thursday, but Upchurch urged the council to see beyond the specific configuration in the drawings and to focus on the idea of a space that would “always be lit,” by having both sports and non-sports programming.
“It needs to be your most used facility,” he said.
The renderings depicted a large, multi-court gym space, a convertible area on the first floor that could be used for large events such as a high school prom, and various meeting spaces on both floors.
For Wald Park, the biggest difference in the plans was TCU’s decision to move the multi-purpose community building offsite to the Gold’s Gym location and instead use that space for a new pool and additional parking. The tennis courts would move to the upper end of the park, near where the Senior Lodge currently sits, and the field space would include a Miracle field for athletes with disabilities or special needs.
There would be a new, inclusive playground, additional green space and a new facility that would serve as both pool locker rooms and storage as well as a vantage point for viewing activity on the fields.
Upchurch said that re-configuring the fields would also create additional rectangular field space at Wald Park, which was identified as a major need throughout the city.
Across town in Cahaba Heights, the ball field facility would see a complete overhaul, with Upchurch saying that every inch of the facility would be improved in some way.
Because of the project scope and the topography, as well as proximity to Vestavia Hills Elementary Cahaba Heights, that project could not be done in phases, and the park would have to go offline for about a year to be completed.
Improvements would include addressing differences in topography between the fields, adding batting cages, moving the concessions facility to the center of the four fields, adding a new and inclusive playground and adding a dog park.
At Liberty Park, Upchurch said, very little work is needed to fully utilize and improve the space.
While a Miracle Field could fit at Liberty Park, Upchurch said it was his feeling from the meetings that the field would better fit at Wald Park, but the integration of a smaller field at Liberty Park could add additional rectangular field space or provide a Miracle Field.
The space would get a new playground and a dog park, and the concessions area would be completely renovated. Pavilions that currently make up the center of the park would be torn down and replaced with removable and longer-lasting shade structures that can be installed or packed away as needed.
Finally, the property that used to be the Altadena Valley Country Club would see the least work, proposing only a gravel road and cul-de-sac planned to provide access to a canoe launch on the Cahaba River and the conversion of golf cart paths into walking trails.
“The scope of the park is to pretty much leave it as it is,” Upchurch said.
Getting down to brass tacks, Upchurch presented the council with the proposed cost of the project, with the grand total coming in at $41,232,757.
That total would be broken down to about $15.43 million for Wald Park, $15.27 million for the community building in the Gold’s Gym building, $7.4 million for the Cahaba Heights ball fields, $2.54 million for work at the Liberty Park athletic fields and just over $595,000 for the work at Altadena.
Initial proposed phasing puts the entire project taking place over the course of about three years, Upchurch said, but the city has the option to fund bits and pieces at a time instead, with the understanding that it may make programming more difficult in some cases.
Upchurch also said the council should consult with the BOE about the field spaces at the former Berry High School campus, as the city has a vested interest in how that space is used as well.
Not addressed in the official proposal was the New Merkel House, but as an aside, Upchurch said that it is his opinion that the structure shouldn’t be renovated, but the city should consider beginning anew once the programming needs are determined with the community building in the mix.
City Councilor Kimberly Cook expressed concern at ruling out improvements to the facility, and asked if Upchurch could provide some numbers on costs of a new space or improving the space when he gives the final documents to Downes.

Emily Featherston
Liberty Park
While Downes noted in his opening remarks that multi-jurisdictional projects are often the most difficult to see come to fruition, another major collaboration is likely in the works at Liberty Park.
With the development of the 700 Acres finally underway, Healthsouth’s corporate headquarters set for opening later this spring and a new senior-living facility taking out building permits for a 100-bed center, traffic at the foot of Liberty Parkway is expected to begin dramatically increasing over the next several years.
Additionally, Downes said, there are other corporations looking for a home base that might consider setting up in the undeveloped lots next door to Healthsouth and the Urban Center.
Addressing the fact that major sections of Liberty Parkway are only two lanes has become a major topic for all interested parties.
To widen the segment of Liberty Parkway in front of the 700 Acres would cost about $3 million, and the segment of Old Overton Road that connects the parkway to Interstate 459 access would cost about $850,000.
Over the last 10 months, Downes said Vestavia Hills, Jefferson County, Birmingham, the Liberty Park Joint Venture and the other private entities that have interest in the infrastructure improvements have been engaged in conversations on how to best share the benefits and costs of such improvements.
The conversation, he said, led to the development of a “Cooperative District” between the public and private parties.
“This is a collaboration,” he said, and added: “While it’s a relatively small project, it does set a tone for regional cooperation.”
The Liberty Park Joint Venture would take on the lion’s share of the cost - $2.38 million or about 58 percent - as Liberty Park residents would be major beneficiaries of the improvements.
Vestavia would take on 13 percent, or about $525,000, of the cost. The other entities would split the remaining cost based on an agreed-upon distribution.
“There’s no magic to those numbers other than to find an equitable, fair share,” Downes said.
Additionally, Liberty Park Joint Venture would have to dedicate Liberty Parkway as a public roadway, something that Downes said has been an issue in the past because Vestavia Hills police officers are not allowed to enforce traffic laws on private roads.
To avoid incurring the cost of maintaining private amenities, however, Downes explained that the city would only own and be responsible for maintaining the asphalt from edge to edge of the roadway, not the curbs, sidewalks or landscaping.The gate at the end of Liberty Parkway on Sicard Hollow Road would also need to be removed because a public road cannot be closed, but Downes said the ability of VHPD to patrol the road would hopefully make homeowners less afraid of security risks of doing so.
The initial engineering plans for the road would include two-lane traffic circles and potentially a traffic light, should the 700 Acres come to include a grocery store.
“Because you have so many entities involved here, there’s always a risk that somebody’s not going to make it through the process,” Downes said, and there are official items the council will have to vote on to take part in the Cooperative District, but he said it is his opinion that it will better position Vestavia to gain economic development and tax revenue in the area.
The Liberty Park discussion also included a presentation by Dan Pile of the greater Birmingham YMCA.
Pile presented an idea about possibly opening a new YMCA location at Liberty Park, which he said the Liberty Park Joint Venture has approached him about.
Pile said he has gotten support for the endeavor from the corporations that are near where the new YMCA would be located.
“The corporations are really behind the Y,” he said.
He said he wanted to emphasize that this YMCA would be innovative, possibly including unique teen spaces and fitness facilities different from those found at for-profit gyms.
“I want y’all to understand we’re not going to build your grandfather’s YMCA,” he said.
The next step in the process, Pile said, will be a market-research study to see if the area would support the building of a YMCA, and what kind of contributions the facility would need to operate.
Finally, the Liberty Park discussion culminated in a presentation by Vestavia Hills Fire Department Chief Marvin Green on the needs the department will have if Liberty Park continues to grow.
Green said that with the growth of senior living facilities, such as the one on the way for Liberty Park, the number of calls the department receives for emergency medical services has risen dramatically, with 271 additional calls coming in in 2017 above what had been a pretty steady number.
Because the rescue vehicle that serves Liberty Park also serves Cahaba Heights, the Altadena area and Patchwork Farms, Green said that the growth at Liberty Park will further emphasize the needs the department has for personnel and equipment for that side of town.
A senior living facility like the one being built usually sees about 120 calls per 100 beds, Green said, so the need is going to be there as things develop.
Green said in the next budget year, he is going to request three additional firefighters and a rescue vehicle that could be housed at Liberty Park.
And as high-rise corporate structures continue to multiply, he said, the city may soon need a new ladder truck as well.
Other Planning Session business included:
- Discussing the city’s communication plan and branding efforts. Communications Specialist Cinnamon McCulley presented her findings over the past nine months as to the strategies and policies she thinks will continue to push the city's communications in the direction it wants to go. She asked the council to review her recommendations and provide feedback, and that she would be presenting the plan to City Attorney Pat Boone for review to avoid issues with freedom of expression and public forum.
- Hearing from Rice Advisory about the city’s capital and debt situation, including potential revenue needs to sustain an additional bond, and the effects taking out a new bond might have on the city’s credit rating.
- Hearing an update from Downes on the progress and future of Patchwork Farms. Downes reported that the city should start receiving full property and sales tax revenue from the developed sites this year. The two undeveloped properties are still not set in stone as to their future, but Downes said he foresees the possibility of a hotel in one of the parcels near Aspire.