Vestavia City Council gets sneak peek at U.S. 31 pedestrian bridge design

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The Vestavia Hills City Council on Monday night received an update and a sneak preview of a pedestrian bridge crossing for Montgomery Highway.

Members of the project team, Edward Alonso of Gresham Smith architecture and design firm as well as Philip Graydon and James Teisserre of Dewberry Engineers, presented schematics and renderings for the long-awaited walkable bridge crossing U.S. 31 and connecting Wald Park with the Vestavia Hills Library in the Forest.

City Manager Jeff Downes said members of the design team were invited at the request of the council in order to provide additional information on the overall visual design of the bridge as well as its lighting and safety features before the city receives construction bids in January.

"We are rapidly approaching bid time, but it was this council's comment that hey, 'We'd like to have more conversation and more inclusion into that bid process and those construction drawings of aesthetic and branding components,'" Downes said.

Alonso shared a handful of slides with the City Council, showing architectural renderings of the bridge which, he said, has been designed to accentuate the area's natural landscape and to share similar architectural attributes as the nearby city buildings.

"The overall aesthetic of the bridge and the building is to be a reflection and extension of the park and the library since it is the connecting element between the two. We also wanted to reflect the beauty of our city and the hills that are represented in our city," Alonso said. "But with some additional accent arches that, by providing a layering effect, kind of give you that same resemblance of the hills that we experience when we're going up and down 31 and see those hills in the distance."

Alonso then turned the discussion to the bridge's proposed branding, presenting several renderings displaying the city's name across the base of the footpath. However, after viewing the renderings, council members Kimberly Cook and George Pierce voiced their opinion that branding the bridge with "Vestavia Hills" takes away from the beauty of the design.

"I just wanted to say that I love the design of the railing the way that it emulates the hills. I think that's a really nice way to include branding in the design, and I think with the lighting, it's going to really be beautiful," Cook said."I was the one who asked for some signage or some lettering or something to sort of pull in the "VH" or Vestavia Hills brand," Cook added. "But after seeing it on the bridge, I think it looks better without it."

Pierce said this bridge is not really the entrance to the city, so city branding is less important there. It’s probably more important to focus on city branding on the lower portion of U.S. 31 near Hoover, he said. Nevertheless, perhaps city officials can revisit the idea of putting some type of city logo on the tower leading to the bridge, he said.

Later in the discussion, Graydon and Teisserre shared the lighting plan, which includes an array of colorful uplighting, and the security plan, which includes a glass elevator cab and three video cameras with a feed directly tied into City Hall.

The City Council also on Monday approved a resolution authorizing $100,000 in funding for a joint effort with Jefferson County to improve the intersection of Columbiana Road and U.S. 31.

"That intersection has more crashes than any other intersection in our city," Downes said. "The county would bid this in December, and we would be looking for winter of '24 construction.”

The council also approved funding for a joint project between Vestavia Hills, Jefferson County and Birmingham for a roundabout at the intersection of Sicard Hollow Road and Blue Lake Drive near the pumphouse in the Cahaba Heights area. It's an estimated $2 million project, and Vestavia Hills is picking up half the tab. The city is getting credit for $269,000 already spent on engineering and is slated to contribute another $731,000 for construction.

In other news:

  • Mayor Ashley Curry, Deputy Vestavia Hills police Chief Jason Harden and Ethan Vice, a district director for Congressman Gary Palmer, presented a portrait and an American flag that flew over the U.S. Capitol in August in honor of recently deceased Vestavia Hills police Chief Danny Rary to his widow Carron and other family members.
  • Curry presented a proclamation to the Megan Montgomery Foundation in recognition of Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
  • Curry presented a proclamation to the Vestavia Hill Fire Department in recognition of Fire Prevention Month.