Huntsville updates

[HSVTiger]

15 screen theater complex in Madison

Project Name: Galaxy 15 Cinema

The subject property is located north of US
Highway 72, east of Wall-Triana Highway
and immediately west of Hughes Road.
The property is immediately north of
Brogan Drive.

The applicant is Cinema M

This is behind Publix adjacent to Lowes on US 72

[ThatGuy]

Originally Posted by HSVTiger

15 screen theater complex in Madison

Project Name: Galaxy 15 Cinema

The subject property is located north of US
Highway 72, east of Wall-Triana Highway
and immediately west of Hughes Road.
The property is immediately north of
Brogan Drive.

The applicant is Cinema M

This is behind Publix adjacent to Lowes on US 72

Not quite to county line road, but close. I had a feeling the Madison area would be getting a new theater soon...

[stewdog1]

Originally Posted by ThatGuy

Not quite to county line road, but close. I had a feeling the Madison area would be getting a new theater soon...

And that is in Madison city limits. Barely. Which is great, because it helps the tax base for city services.

[HSVTiger]

Originally Posted by stewdog1

And that is in Madison city limits. Barely. Which is great, because it helps the tax base for city services.

yeah the Huntsville City limits borders the property

[Huntsvillenative]

Originally Posted by HSVTiger

15 screen theater complex in Madison

Project Name: Galaxy 15 Cinema

The subject property is located north of US
Highway 72, east of Wall-Triana Highway
and immediately west of Hughes Road.
The property is immediately north of
Brogan Drive.

The applicant is Cinema M

This is behind Publix adjacent to Lowes on US 72

That's freaking AWESOME!!!! It's just roughly 4 miles from my house!

[mp7123]

Anyone know what is going in the old Southern Family Markets on 72 in Madison? Looks like they are dividing the space and putting something in the west end of the building.

[HSVTiger]

Originally Posted by mp7123

Anyone know what is going in the old Southern Family Markets on 72 in Madison? Looks like they are dividing the space and putting something in the west end of the building.

Tractor Supply maybe and possibly a Planet Fitness in another space. That is a hot piece of property location wise. Surprised it has taken this long to re develop.

[ThatGuy]

Anybody know what is going in between Dick's and the shoe store in Jones Valley?

[downtownhsvguy]

Good News for the area:
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – Cummings Aerospace is about to take a huge leap toward a larger role in Huntsville's defense community.

After spending the past four years in leased space behind Madison Square Mall, the company has signed a contract to buy 10 acres in Cummings Research Park for a new corporate headquarters. The Huntsville City Council approved the $650,000 deal at its meeting Thursday night.

President and CEO Sheila Cummings said the company plans to develop a four-building campus over time with room for as many as 380 employees.

Cummings Aerospace currently has 44 employees in the Rocket City to go along with offices in Orlando and Niceville, Fla.

Moving to Mark C. Smith Drive in Cummings Research Park is "a huge step for the company," Sheila Cummings told AL.com Thursday night. "We spend a lot of time at work and want to provide a space that allows our engineers to be creative and supports a very balanced work environment."

Cummings said she hopes to close on the land purchase within a month and break ground on the first office building in the spring. Matheny Goldmon Architects of Huntsville is designing the campus.

Tactical and ballistic missile system engineering is Cummings Aerospace's primary field now, but Sheila Cummings said she is pushing to diversify into other areas. The new campus will include space for hardware and software prototyping, she said.

According to the contract approved Thursday night, the city will pay up to $50,000 to run utilities to the Cummings Aerospace site and build an access road off Mark C. Smith Drive.

[HSVTiger]

Downtown hotel proposals coming

The Von Braun Center parking garage site on Monroe Street is proving to be a hot commodity with hotel developers.

Forty-six firms have expressed interest since Mayor Tommy Battle's announcement that Huntsville will consider leasing some or all of the four-acre property for a hotel and mixed-use development.

Although redevelopment proposals are not due until Feb. 4, Director of Urban Development Shane Davis said it's "very promising" that so many companies - both from Alabama and out of state - have downloaded an application from the city's website.

Ongoing revitalization work "has created a new sense of community pride, energy, and engagement in the downtown core," Davis told AL.com last week. "This success has others looking at downtown as a very viable option for their next investment project.

"The responses to date just validate the energy that our downtown is currently experiencing," he said.

Huntsville is asking interested developers to submit their best ideas and offers for the VBC garage site, which borders Big Spring International Park and is just steps from Propst Arena and the Mark C. Smith Concert Hall.

The responses to date just validate the energy that our downtown is currently experiencing.

The city is seeking a developer who can build "a distinctive and sustainable mixed-use development" with a minimum of 125 hotel rooms plus retail and office space.


A large project that consumes most of the VBC deck would likely be required to create new on-site parking.

Here's what the bid document says: "The property is located near an important gateway and any development on that site will be highly visible and set the tone for other development in that area. Therefore, the vision is that this would be a high quality development, both in design and materials, and that it would be properly scaled and proportioned for this high profile location."

The city says the developers with the best ideas will be invited for interviews and presentations between Feb. 17 and Feb. 21. The mayor's office would then recommend a preferred developer to the Huntsville City Council.

Whoever wins the development rights would lease the property from the city.

Battle has said the city is willing to consider a major convention hotel that takes up the entire VBC garage site. A smaller development fronting Monroe Street that preserves most of the existing parking deck is also an option, he said.

"It's kind of a wide-open proposal," he said earlier this month. "We know that we want to retain our parking, not encroach on Big Spring Park and provide additional lodging for the civic center."
Steve Doyle/ Huntsville Times

[HSVTiger]

Mayor Tommy Battle said city and state leaders will likely meet through the Thanksgiving holiday to begin crafting an incentive package aimed at bringing Boeing's 777X jetliner production to Huntsville.

"We're going to work through what we can do and how we can structure this to be a win for the state and the community and Boeing," Battle told AL.com Monday. "We're going to be competitive in this thing. The governor has made that commitment, the secretary of commerce has made that commitment."

Boeing confirmed over the weekend that it has sent out a formal request for proposals to more than a dozen sites across the United States. Huntsville, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, North Charleston, S.C., and Long Beach, Calif., are believed to be on the company's short list.

The state of Washington – which was in line to manufacture the 777X until the Machinists union rejected a labor contract that called for pension cuts and other concessions – has offered $9 billion in tax breaks and additional workforce training to keep the work in the Seattle area.

The San Antonio Express-News reported last week that 777X production would bring "up to 10,000 high-paying jobs" to the winning city.

"It's one of the biggest projects that's ever hit Alabama," Battle said of the Boeing opportunity.

Huntsville's pitch to Boeing includes a highly skilled workforce capable of performing all the necessary engineering, production and systems integration in a single location, low cost of living, affordable tax structure.
HSV Times

[HSVTiger]

Golden Corral coming back..

The Raleigh, N.C.-based restaurant chain plans to break ground early next year on a large company-operated restaurant on University Drive near Landers McLarty Chevrolet. Golden Corral had a franchise location across from Madison Square Mall that closed about 10 years ago.

"We've wanted to come back to the Huntsville area for quite some time but had not been able to find a location that worked for us," Vice President of Development Richard T. Chase told AL.com Tuesday.

"So, we redoubled our efforts."

Last month, the Huntsville Board of Zoning Adjustment granted Golden Corral a parking variance for what will be one of the city's biggest restaurants. The seating capacity is listed at 444 people.

This afternoon, the Huntsville Planning Commission will consider a request to subdivide land located between Landers McLarty Chevrolet and Waffle House into two new commercial tracts. McGuffey said the larger 2.3-acre parcel is for Golden Corral; the other is for a future Verizon Wireless store.

The businesses will share a parking lot, he said.

Chase said Golden Corral hopes to break ground on its new University Drive restaurant in early 2014. Construction is expected to take five to six months, he said.

[HSVTiger]

Another downtown brewery opens, this one a 2 blocks east of Twickenham Square

Huntsville Brewery, located in the former 801 Franklin building on 801 Franklin St. near Huntsville Hospital, has only been serving customers for two weeks, but already has plans to grow its beer selection, expand the open-air community biergarten (German for beer garden) and begin operating as a brew pub by spring of next year.
Huntsville Brewery currently offers a range of local, state and regional craft beers on tap, but plans to have up to 80 selections hooked up soon. Kerry said the restaurant also has between 30 and 50 bottled beers in stock, and that number should jump to 160 in time.

When Huntsville Brewery starts producing its own beer in 2014, Kerry said they will make a smoked bacon-flavored porter, a brown "gateway" ale for craft beer novices and a hoppy India Pale Ale before branching into seasonal varieties.

[neilson]

Originally Posted by HSVTiger

15 screen theater complex in Madison

Project Name: Galaxy 15 Cinema

The subject property is located north of US
Highway 72, east of Wall-Triana Highway
and immediately west of Hughes Road.
The property is immediately north of
Brogan Drive.

The applicant is Cinema M

This is behind Publix adjacent to Lowes on US 72

So I guess the proposed Amstar theater by the new Highway 72 Wal-Mart is dead?

[TimCity2000]

Huntsville and Birmingham seem to be leading the state's brewery revolution.

[HSVTiger]

Originally Posted by TimCity2000

Huntsville and Birmingham seem to be leading the state's brewery revolution.

Also Salty Nut Brewery in Huntsville.

Founded in 2012, Beer Engineers distributes from Huntsville to Mobile, but hopes to open a facility of their own in Birmingham soon. The brewery is best known for their specialty beers and limited releases, such as the Peanut Butter Porter and the Bourbon Barrel version of our Velocity Imperial Ale.

Also, Below the Radar Brewhouse in Huntsville recently released its first two beers, Firefox Pale Ale and Black Ops IPA.

[stewdog1]

Good news everyone! The I-565 & County Line interchange finally/officially broke ground today. Estimated completion is May 2015.

[downtownhsvguy]

New boeing factory (from www.al.com):

Who thinks Huntsville might be a serious candidate for a new next-generation Boeing aircraft plant? The Seattle Times does, adding Huntsville to its list of four competitors for the new plant meriting a closer look. The other three are Long Beach, Calif.; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Charleston, S.C.

Boeing announced in November that it would “pursue all options” for building its new 777x jetliner after a Seattle union rejected the company’s final offer for an 8-year labor contract extension. Alabama officials said a few days later that they will make a proposal to bring the new plant to North Alabama.

Seattle Times reporter Kyung Song arrived in Huntsville Monday for a series of interviews with local officials, economic development professionals and people familiar with the city. She told an Alabama Media Group reporter that the paper can’t compare the competing states’ confidential proposals to Boeing, but it can look at what each might offer in high-tech expertise, economic history, available labor and other competitive factors.

Boeing has been actively involved in defense and space work in Huntsville for decades and owns 300 acres between the runways at the Huntsville International Airport. That site is large enough to house the plant Boeing intends to build for the next-generation airplane, Mayor Tommy Battle says.

Battle and other leaders are pitching Huntsville as a site where engineering, production and systems integration for the new plane could be done in one location. “We have a storied history with aeronautics," Battle said Nov. 19. "We can work with commercial aviation. The governor is very engaged in this process, the secretary of commerce is very engaged. We look at this as a great opportunity for us."

What do you guys think about this actually happening?

[elb401]

While I don't know much about site selection for jet manufacturing, I think Charleston is going to be the most competitive in the south. They have an established plant in Charleston with room to grow, they also have a good relationship with Boeing, their supplier base is there, a port (most of the large parts travel by boat), and the logistics are already in place. While the plant will need some high tech work it is not necessary to be in a high tech area. I do think that other states will be able to match the incentives that Alabama would offer too. Boeing has a history of doing these types of searches to get more favorable contracts in Washington State. I think Huntsville still has a chance, but I don't think it will get it. I hope it does and I'm wrong.

[HSVTiger]

Originally Posted by stewdog1

Good news everyone! The I-565 & County Line interchange finally/officially broke ground today. Estimated completion is May 2015.

There is huge interest in the alnd around this interchange, it will probably develop quickly
you can thank the potential Boeing plant for jump starting this along with the negative reports aldot was getting from Mayor Battle.

see they admit it

Gov. Bentley said the reason the interchange took so long to get going was because historically North Alabama has been "left out" of getting the infrastructure help it needed.

Gov. Bentley said there's not a better group of people to work with than the leadership "in this part of the state" and added there's more infrastructure projects to come.

"State transportation dollars are scarce. We don't have as many as we would like," he said. "But we certainly need to put scarce dollars in the areas of the state that would benefit the most from it and create the most jobs. And I believe this part of the state is an area we need to concentrate on."