Huntsville Projects

[East Side Urbanite]

Outstanding photos of Huntsville by Mark. He and Smeags gave it a good look. Ron knows Huntsville extremely well (if you ever need info)!

 

[MLBrumby]

Huntsville is fine and could have a bright future. It has great jobs, about the only city in Alabama I'd even consider living in.  But it's too suburban for my liking.

[BnaBreaker]

3 hours ago, MLBrumby said:

Huntsville is fine and could have a bright future. It has great jobs, about the only city in Alabama I'd even consider living in.  But it's too suburban for my liking.

Yeah, I understand why people move there.  Good schools, clean and affordable, solid housing market, jobs galore... but as far as the city itself is concerned, in my opinion, as Gertrude Stein would say, "there is no there, there." 

[markhollin]

More of Huntsville, concentrating on downtown area:
 

[markhollin]

Upland Park will be a 60 acre, $200 million mixed-use development in Huntsville by Nashville-based Nicol Investment Company. It will feature 335 apartments, 189 senior-living residences, along with restaurants, retail, and entertainment.  Vintage South and Centric Architecture (also both of Nashville) are partnering on the project as well.  

More at NBJ here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2021/08/27/deal-dash-someraroad-fifth-broadway.html

[markhollin]

Huntsville's new City Hall (7 stories, 170,000 sq. ft., 568 capacity garage, $85 million) at 304 Fountain Circle Dr. is underway with demo of site complete. GMC is the architect; Turner Construction is the contractor.

More at NashvilleNowNext here:

https://nashvillenownext.com/2022/03/30/demolition-makes-way-for-new-city-hall-in-downtown-huntsville/

[markhollin]

Huntsville's Orion Amphitheater (capacity 8,000) will be opening this month.

https://www.huntsville.org/blog/list/post/huntsvilles-orion-amphitheater-everything-visitors-should-know/

 

[grilled_cheese]

From their FB page

[rolly]

That is really cool.  It'd be great to see more of Huntsville-Nashville integration.

[nashville born]

11 hours ago, rolly said:

That is really cool.  It'd be great to see more of Huntsville-Nashville integration.

I've been meaning to ask about this.  Why is there a Huntsville project thread?

[markhollin]

Progress on 2020 at Providence on west side of Huntsville from CityNowNext:

https://citynownext.com/2022/04/20/progress-on-2020-at-providence-a-new-mixed-use-development-in-huntsville/

[markhollin]

NashvilleNowNext has a feature on updates at the MidCity District in Huntsville, including the. new Anthem House (7 stories, 330 residential units, 35,000 sq. ft. office space, 33,000 sq. ft. ground level retail):

https://nashvillenownext.com/2022/09/30/the-rcp-companies-break-ground-on-anthem-house-at-midcity-district-in-huntsville/#more-21542

 

[markhollin]

Huntsville's MidCity District has announced Wellory Living (4 stories, 328 units, 40,000 sq. ft. of solar panels on roof.  There are now 1,198 residential units between various projects at MidCity, along with lots of retail, office, and the amphitheater.

More at NashvilleNowNext here:

https://nashvillenownext.com/2022/12/16/midcity-district-announces-its-first-net-zero-multi-family-development-in-huntsville/
 

[East Side Urbanite]

Great job with all the Huntsville photos, Mark. Keep posting about Huntsville. I'm interested.

 

[BnaBreaker]

Is this Mid-City District a converted mall or something?  I'm assuming so based on all the surface parking surrounding it.  If so, what a very sharp and well done development!

[markhollin]

CityNowNext has a feature on the new home to Huntsville City FC, the redesigned Joe Davis Stadium (former minor league baseball stadium).

https://citynownext.com/2023/02/21/get-a-sneak-peek-inside-the-future-home-of-huntsville-city-fc-soccer/

Photos courtesy of Robert Looper III:

[e-dub]

On 12/16/2022 at 11:12 PM, BnaBreaker said:

Is this Mid-City District a converted mall or something?  I'm assuming so based on all the surface parking surrounding it.  If so, what a very sharp and well done development!

Yep. Used to be Madison Square mall back in the day.

[UrbanWes03]

On 2/23/2023 at 2:28 PM, e-dub said:

Yep. Used to be Madison Square mall back in the day.

I wish Knoxville had done this good of a job redeveloping a mall. We just turned it into an Amazon fulfillment center…

[markhollin]

CityNowNext has coverage of the groundbreaking on Front Row Huntsville (11 acres, one 17 stories, two 6 stories, 545 residential units, 36,000 sq. ft. office space, 47,000 sq. ft. retail space, urban green space) on a large empty lot in the downtown area:

https://citynownext.com/2024/04/18/work-begins-on-11-acre-mixed-use-development-in-downtown-huntsville/#more-40340
 

[NissanvilleTitans]

When you drive through Huntsville nowadays, it feels like you're driving through a pretty big city. It feels larger than Knoxville. Heck, it feels larger and more modern than Louisville or Indianapolis. At least, until you hit downtown coming from Decatur.

[Tim29tn]

Huntsville’s biggest downfall is not being right on I65. Having to drive 15-20 minutes after exiting onto 565 to get to the downtown area is a huge blow. 

[Hey_Hey]

7 hours ago, NissanvilleTitans said:

When you drive through Huntsville nowadays, it feels like you're driving through a pretty big city. It feels larger than Knoxville. Heck, it feels larger and more modern than Louisville or Indianapolis. At least, until you hit downtown coming from Decatur.

I don’t think I would go quite that far. I’m in Huntsville regularly (and will be there this weekend), and compared to Louisville it still feels quite small.  It arguably feels more modern, but “modern oftentimes means suburban and less dense. To be honest feels closer in size to Clarksville than Louisville. Louisville feels larger than it is because of its dense urban core. 

[TNinVB]

Since this thread popped back up I’ve been reading about Huntsville. I’ve never visited, and have only passed by to visit family in Birmingham many years ago. I never really thought much of the city. I mean you can’t even see it from the interstate. I was today days old when I found out it’s Alabama’s largest city. I always thought it was Birmingham. Mind blown! 

[Auntie Yock]

3 hours ago, TNinVB said:

Since this thread popped back up I’ve been reading about Huntsville. I’ve never visited, and have only passed by to visit family in Birmingham many years ago. I never really thought much of the city. I mean you can’t even see it from the interstate. I was today days old when I found out it’s Alabama’s largest city. I always thought it was Birmingham. Mind blown! 

Technically, Birmingham really is the largest city (at least population center), with Mobile being 2nd. But Birmingham City is largely hemmed in as to where it can annex, as it is just 150 square miles. It is surrounded by scores of smaller suburban towns. If it could merge with Jefferson County, it would be closer in size to Louisville (about 700k), though that won't happen. Mobile has a slightly similar problem with suburbs that are separate towns. If it could merge with its same-named county, it would have 400k people. Birmingham has been drastically losing population since 1960 (when it had 340k people in a smaller area of land). Mobile peaked in 1960 as well, and has been stagnant ever since (though it has annexed out to at least maintain somewhere close to its 1960 figure of 200+k).

Montgomery has now moved into 2nd place (as Birmingham has dropped from 2nd to 3rd just since 2010/20), but it is unusual in that there are no incorporated towns within its same county hindering its ability to annex (except for one other, which only incorporated recently, Pike Road). Although it has only annexed just 160 sq miles, a smidge bigger than Birmingham. It's also facing a similar problem that Birmingham has since the 1960s, with White Flight (as has Mobile). 

Huntsville, albeit technically "largest", has 225 square miles, making it 1/3rd larger in land area than Birmingham, and it has been annexing quite liberally into its neighboring county of Limestone and apparently into Madison to its south. As late as the 1950s, Huntsville was the 14th(!) largest city in Alabama with only 16,000 residents, partly because it occupied a tiny area of land and left its suburbs as unincorporated. It was actually smaller than Mobile's largest suburb of the time, the infamous Prichard. At the same time, Birmingham had 325,000. The annexations caused Huntsville to jump from 16k in 1950 to 72,000 in 1960 and 140k in 1970 and an additional 80k in the past 50 years.

As much as we wish these cities to reflect their size in their "downtowns" today, it's usually when they became larger that will reflect that. If that only occurred after the 1960s, their downtowns will likely be underwhelming, but if before (like Birmingham), they'll look disproportionately larger than expected. A huge example of that, which is technically the largest city in Virginia, the resort city of Virginia Beach, had just 8,000 people in 1960, now fast approaching a half-million due to its merger with its county. Anyone looking there for a substantial downtown of skyscrapers will be in for a huge letdown, as the only towers are the beach hotels, and in the original town center, there's very little to constitute anything resembling a downtown. This was just a small town surrounded by suburbs extending out from Norfolk (which is more of a traditional city) and Portsmouth (another actual city with much historical buildings near their riverfront). Huntsville is not nearly as underwhelming as VA Beach, but compared to Birmingham and its downtown skyscrapers, it's a bit of a letdown.

[smeagolsfree]

Downtown is still not all that impressive and Huntsville as a whole is one giant suburb on par with Murfreesboro.

Not trying to be too harsh here but I have been there, and the downtown area is OK but still nothing to write home about. It has a long way to go. Not much in the way of a pedestrian vibe either. I will be back down there Saturday.