Huntsville’s urban planning and infrastructure hopeful amidst growing pains

Cover image: Marty Sellers of SellersPhoto

Huntsville kicked off its celebration of National Community Planning Month last week with a public event at the South Huntsville Public Library featuring city planners Thomas Nunez, Dennis Madsen, James Vanderver and Jo Beth Gleason, as well as Council Member Jennie Robinson.

From sidewalks to public transportation, community growth has constantly kept city planners and the Huntsville City Council on their toes each and every week. The event attempted to address some of these issues and to thank the community for its patience.

“This activity in itself is a culmination of community planning in general, but not just the efforts of the, with every nonprofit and every private sector and every citizen that has an input into this process. And we thank you for that,” Thomas Nunez said in reference to the event.

The event initially focused on the explosive growth seen in South Huntsville as an example of the progress that Huntsville representatives are bringing to the city’s overall infrastructure. 

Dennis Madsen, Manager of Long-Range and Urban Planning, noticed quick improvements in South Huntsville starting in 2014, which was around the same time that the South Huntsville Main Business Association was established.

Since then, the city has seen developments that included a revamping of Memorial Parkway with new overpasses, streamlining some traffic flow just in time for South Huntsville’s urban development to take off. Another major development included the Sandy Moon Community Complex and the opening of the expanded Grissom High School.

Further development aimed to revitalize South Huntsville can be seen with the annexation of Hays Farm, which included hundreds of acres that are now part of the city’s tax base rather than the county’s. This development brought new and revitalized storefronts, office spaces, and more housing to an area seeing increased demand. Hays Market includes anchor tenant Publix, fine dining with Tom Brown’s and Amerigo, and will see the opening of yet another Bank Independent location in the coming months.

According to Madsen, most of these projects and subsequent growth of the area were directly aided by the instructure growth brought to the area.

“With the help of the planning department finding these uses for those properties, we now have been able to revitalize that area. And with it has come more and more redevelopment along the South Parkway. But I think it’s just the beginning of what we’re going to see,” said Madsen.

Public transportation was also a central theme of the meeting.

James Vanderver, another member of long-range planning staff, said that a high-capacity transit study helped the department identify two corridors within Huntsville that are viable locations of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). 

BRT buses run every 15 minutes, a quality of life improvement that would minimize bus waiting times. Further development of the “72 Medical” corridor has been approved by the Federal Transit Administration. This route would connect Huntsville Hospital, Downtown Huntsville, University Drive, and the Village of Providence. 

Vanderver also explained that the efforts of city planners led to a great deal of success in circulating census materials in 2020. Despite the pandemic, 75% of Huntsville neighborhoods had a higher self-response rate than they did in 2010. 

Jo Beth Gleason, the newest member of the Long Range and Urban Planning Department who was hired around a year ago, expounded on this point further and talked about alternate means of transportation such as walking and biking. Gleason noted the development of the Holmes Avenue Complete Streets Project, aimed to make the area more equally accessible to any mode of transport whether that’s vehicular, transit, pedestrian, or biking. 

Huntsville has set a 2055 goal for Vision Zero, which is the goal to bring Huntsville to zero traffic fatalities. As of now, University Drive is the city’s worst high-injury network; Bob Wallace and Memorial Parkway were also noted as having elevated rates of serious injuries and fatalities.

Elevating these areas also helps interlink Huntsville for entertainment and arts purposes, which will only open up accessibility to special events going on yearly throughout the city. The representatives and city planners also alluded to the growing pains experienced by theaters in the Huntsville area. 

Council representative Robinson emphasized projects that are helping to expand Huntsville arts and entertainment sector. Robinson discussed an upcoming office and rehearsal space coming from Arts Huntsville slated to open this fall. As of now, six performing arts groups will work out of the space. The auditorium will be a 600-seat proscenium theater, a need identified by the 1996 Arts Council via a community engagement survey. 

“There are theaters or event spaces that are around two hundred, three hundred seats. You’ve got the VBC or you’ve got the big old concert hall and, and even that is so expensive and is booked five years in advance. The performing arts community thought that they needed a smaller venue,” she said.

The speakers followed up with an open question and answer session in which they addressed one resident’s concerns with the possibility of growing populations out-pacing infrastructure. The resident stated that the explosive population growth has had a significant effect on his commute times and believes the developers should be taking on larger impact fees to help infrastructure keep up. 

Nunez responded optimistically, and ultimately explained that the Huntsville City Council will continue to look into ways to help the city infrastructure grow alongside Huntsville’s population increase.

“And there are some things that we are investigating what impact, what things look like for not just one form of development, but all forms of development across the board. So there is something that is a consideration, but it will be up to our city council to adopt something of that nature,” concluded Nunez.

For more information, please visit www.huntsvilleal.gov.