Save Big Spring Park East !: 2017

Does Huntsville’s Future Really Depend on One Building?

The site in question is publicly owned land, and it’s not just any land: it’s where Huntsville’s history began. Big Spring Park is home to the iconic natural spring that drew both Native Americans and the first settlers to the area, a beautiful place worth preserving for our children and grandchildren. And, indeed, Huntsville’s taxpayers recently invested over $2 million in Big Spring Park renovations with an eye to serving future generations.

► E-mail Mayor Tommy Battle

Just over a year ago, our city fathers quietly began developing a complicated plan to change the character of Big Spring Park and Huntsville’s downtown. The project begins by demolishing our existing Fountain Circle Garage and building two new garages - a replacement public garage at taxpayer expense alongside a private garage for this project. Next, the plan calls for building a large multi-phase privately owned office/retail development. Then the plan calls for building a new City Hall at taxpayer expense. The last stage of the project demolishes our current City Hall to give rise to obtrusive private residences along Big Spring Park East. Complicated and costly, yes. But is it in Huntsville’s best interest?

On July 27, City officials announced a letter of intent for a complex arrangement that will allow private developers a free hand in this important location. In the announcement, Mayor Tommy Battle cited "transparency" as the reason he sought the resolution (from the City Council for a letter of intent) and said there will be public presentations of the plans as the project advances. The idea of new buildings is alluring, but there are unintended and unspoken consequences to both our city and our tax dollars.

In the plan, we are told the City Hall building is old and dangerous, and therefore must be replaced, but it cannot be replaced in its current location. That raises the first question: Why not? Instead, the publicly-owned land it sits on will be sold for private development, eliminating any future opportunity to expand Big Spring Park as Huntsville’s population grows. The proposed building will loom up to seventeen stories high, casting a permanent shadow on our legacy Park.

Has Huntsville received any other bids or proposals for this redevelopment, or will the property be awarded to a private developer without fair and healthy competition? This developer’s previous foray upon the edges of Big Spring Park (The Summit) left us with many of his promises unfulfilled.

There is much available real estate nearby, yet our Mayor is choosing to put your publicly owned lands at the disposal of private developers. In the letter of intent, the developers insist this deal must be rushed through by December 31, 2017. It is now subject only to the final approval of our City Council.

The overreach for this massive project is a forever sale of the most historic location in all of Huntsville for the price of about four upscale homes.

The generated tax revenue here is the same as if this new private building were built elsewhere nearby, so Huntsville does not stand to gain significant new revenue. However, the proposed development requires the destruction of a fully functional garage, replaced by a new garage funded by property taxes and sales tax dollars from existing businesses.

Mayor Battle has promised us a private, for-profit iconic building. But he conveniently omitted telling us is that this deal will take away a public resource that belongs to all of us to enrich the players that brought him this proposal.

This is neither the right time nor the right place in Huntsville’s future for this particular building.

Simply put, this “done deal” is a bad deal. And it is a sad day when we are so disconnected from one another that we will not or cannot stand up together against such deals when they are promulgated.

This is a call to action before December 31.

E-mail Tommy Battle
tommy.battle@huntsvilleal.gov