New Governors Drive Development to Change the Face of the City

While Huntsville’s sustained growth continues to be much celebrated, there have been only a handful of events in the past 30 years that have significantly changed the face of the city.

A new multiuse commercial and residential development by The Beach Company along Huntsville’s western gateway at Governors Drive and 14th Street will change the face of Huntsville.

The Charleston, S.C.-based developers’ broke ground this week on a three-story, 49,000 square foot commercial office and studio space known as The Range; and a multiuse residential building, The Foundry.

The Foundry consists of 271 multi-family flats and 14 townhomes. Also, part of the development are more than 4,300 square feet of mixed use live/work units, and 51 stacked flats; 5,500 square feet of retail space, with an additional 676 parking spaces.

Located within walking distance of the Stovehouse and Campus 805, The Range and The Foundry will replace an aging and somewhat blighted section of Governors Drive to create a safe, walkable neighborhood that is convenient to I-565, unique in its design and concept and connected by luxury housing, high-end retail, restaurants, and commercial workspace.

Due to an earlier rain that made the site itself too muddy to ceremoniously displace the first shovels of dirt, The Beach Company relocated the groundbreaking event to the Stovehouse. It was in part Stovehouse owners Danny and Patti Yancey who encouraged The Beach Company to build the Range and Foundry in this part of town.

Mayor Tommy Battle humorously reflected on his first impression of Huntsville when he arrived here in 1980.

“I-565 was not there so you entered the city on Highway 20,” he said. “The first place I came to that was recognizable as Huntsville was here along Governors Drive – a no-tell motel on the left side, and the Black Forest Lounge on the right side. I remember thinking, what have I gotten into here?

“But for any of us who have been here a long time, when you look at this site today, you get a flavor of the community. Sixty percent of us come from somewhere else. We come here and bring some good ideas from other areas where we have visited, and we try to keep out bad ideas we have seen in other areas. But as we do that, we change the face of this community. This development will change the face of our community one more time.”

“I met Danny Yancey in 2019 and what he and Patti have done with the Stovehouse is amazing,” said John Darby, president and CEO of The Beach Co. 

The Beach Company has been around for 75 years and has invested in over 20 communities across the Southeast. This is the firm’s first project in Huntsville, and Darby said building partnerships is a big part of their strategy. He then pulled a surprise out of his pocket.

“Every city should have a Danny and Patti Yancey,” he said. “When we enter a market, we like to contribute to that market, so today we are making a contribution to Patti’s Liberty Learning Foundation.” 

The presentation met with huge cheers all around. The Liberty Learning Foundation helps to provide civic education programs and live experiences to teach, inspire and empower the Next Great Americans.

Darby said not only does their research show Huntsville to be a dynamic market that checks off all the boxes like job growth and wage growth, but the city is the topic of conversation back in Charleston.

“Last week, a group of CEOs in Charleston got together to talk about how to bring innovative companies to the Charleston area,” he said. “We talked about ways to do that for the first ten minutes of the meeting and the final 50 minutes we discussed Huntsville, Alabama.”

Battle showed his enthusiasm not just for The Beach Company’s investment in Huntsville, but for the long-term vision of improving Governors Drive in that part of town.

“David Martin had a vison of a Blue Plate restaurant out here,” he said. “Randy Schrimsher had a vision to do Campus 805. Then Danny and Patti came to me and said they wanted to do something with the Martin Stove property, and I said, ‘Really?’

“You look at the Stovehouse, go to Lowe Mill and see one of the largest artists’ studios in the U.S. located in an old mill building. 

“Then you look at what is happening here and now with The Range and The Foundry – we can see the beat of our city change. The face of our city change.

“We thank you for your vision for an image of uniqueness, and to help us do what we have always done – look outside the box,” said Battle.

Crunkleton & Associates will handle the commercial leasing space for The Range; Brasfield & Gorrie is the general contractor for The Range; and Wieland Builds is the contractor for The Foundry.