Vestavia Hills City Council rezones land for new Rocky Ridge office building

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The Vestavia Hills City Council on Monday night rezoned a portion of two lots on Rocky Ridge Road to accommodate a new office building for a home builder.

Taylor Burton of The Taylor Burton Co., a custom home builder, plans to relocate his office from 3239 Lorna Road in Hoover to portions of two lots at 2551 and 2553 Rocky Ridge Road in Vestavia Hills.

The property sits directly across from Express Oil Change & Tire Engineers and next to Mountain Chapel Methodist Church and for years was the location of an interior design business in what looks like a residence.

Burton said Monday night he plans to tear down the existing building on the property and build a new roughly 4,500-square-foot office building that also will be designed with a residential look. It will be the new office for his company.

Burton is breaking off the back portion of the property into two residential lots that will front Collinwood Court in the Gramercy Parc subdivision in unincorporated Jefferson County. He already has begun the deannexation process for those two new lots, according to a memo from Vestavia Hills City Clerk Rebecca Leavings.

Burton said he plans to build those two homes and will make them a similar size as other homes in Gramercy Parc, probably 3,000 to 4,000 square feet. The construction entrance will be directly from Rocky Ridge Road so as not to disturb neighbors in Gramercy Parc, he said.

Burton said his office has been on Lorna Road in Hoover for 35 years, but the younger generation of his family would prefer a newer office, and their family has deeper ties to Vestavia Hills, where they have lived and gone to school and church.

He hopes to begin construction on the new homes and new office within 60 days and be complete with the jobs in about a year, he said.

The official zoning action taken Monday was to rezone the portion of the lots along Rocky Ridge Road from a Jefferson County garden home district and Vestavia Hills office park district to make all of the property a Vestavia Hills office park district. The council also completed an annexation of a portion of the property that was in unincorporated Jefferson County.

In other business Monday night, the City Council:

  • Annexed and rezoned property at 3512 Valley Circle from a Jefferson County E-2 estate zone to a Vestavia Hills R-1 residential zone.
  • Agreed to purchase two 2023 Chevrolet Silverados from Donahoo Chevrolet for $45,577 each for use by Vestavia Hills Fire Department staff.
  • Agreed to opt into a fuel savings program offered by the Cahaba Solid Waste Disposal Authority that will allow garbage trucks picking up garbage in Vestavia Hills to purchase fuel tax-free. The arrangement should save the city $65,147 a year, City Manager Jeff Downes said.
  • Hired Gresham Smith to provide additional design services for a pedestrian bridge being built over U.S. 31 to provide city of Vestavia Hills branding, decorative lighting, better security and additional utility coordination services. The Alabama Department of Transportation is paying for 80% of the cost of the design services, and the additional cost to Vestavia Hills will be $14,397, Downes said.
  • Had a first reading of proposed ordinances to enter agreements with the Jefferson County Commission for improvements to Columbiana Road, the intersection of Columbiana Road and U.S. 31 and the roundabout intersection of Blue Lake Drive and Sicard Hollow Road. The city of Birmingham also would be a party to the roundabout work.
  • Heard a report from Mayor Ashley Curry that a new foundation has been created to support the Vestavia Hills Fire Department.
  • Agreed to dispose of old computers, laptops, monitors and printers.
  • Agreed to contract with SAP Concur for a cloud-based program to reimburse employees for travel expenses.