Sweetwater district moving forward

Developing an entertainment district in the Sweetwater area of East Florence will not happen overnight, the city's planning director said.

"I wish we could snap our fingers and magically everything would be the way we want it right now," Melissa Bailey said. "We all know that is not the case."

Bailey said the city has made the correct move in establishing the "Sweetwater Arts and Entertainment District."

"What they envisioned down there was a Printer's Alley or Beale Street, taking advantage of our musical history and developing it," city clerk Bob Leyde said.

Assistant Planning Director Robert Muse said there is a common misconception that the city rezoned the Sweetwater area just for lounges.

"We didn't," Muse said. "All we did was exempt the parking restrictions in the historical core."

Many of the row buildings in the Sweetwater area join at the property line and do not have off-street parking.

Muse said what the city did is to relax the off-street parking requirement for lounges and restaurants.

What was also created is a unique area that encompasses several different zones to allow a variety of businesses to locate there, he said.

Muse said the area is now a melting pot of single- or multi-family residential use, a combination of residential/business use, lounges and restaurant use and general business.

"It's something no other zone allows," he said.

Big Ed's was the first nightclub to locate in the Sweetwater area.

While he is open only on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday nights, owner Eddie Sandlin said he's happy with his first year and a half of operation.

Sandlin praised the city for establishing the entertainment district but said he wished the development would move a little faster.

"As soon as that happens, I think we will be OK," Sandlin said. "We have to make it a hot spot that people want to come to."

Sandlin said his biggest obstacle has been the crowds. Sometimes they're large; sometimes they're not.

"You can't gauge the crowds," he said. "The crowds are fickle. There's no consistency."

Sandlin said an illness prevented him from paying as much attention to the club as he wanted, but he has some plans to bring people to his business.

"We've spent the last week down there cleaning up," Sandlin said. "We're going after the (University of North Alabama) crowd."

He said he hopes to achieve that goal by presenting a variety of live music and offering drink specials.

"I want the UNA kids to stay in Florence," Sandlin said. "I don't want them to go home. If they go home, they don't spend any money in our restaurants."

Bailey said the city is not finished studying the best way to develop the entertainment district.

She said the city is working with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and the Environmental Protection Agency in a "brownfield study" which addresses redeveloping abandoned industrial sites.

She said the city applied for a $400,000 grant, $200,000 of which would be site specific to the Sweetwater area and $200,000 would be to target brownfield sites in the city.

"We've been working on it a long time," Bailey said. "It takes months to develop a proposal."

Councilman Hermon Graham said one area of possible development is the old Foundry of the Shoals.

Owner Tim Roberson is in the process of demolishing the foundry.

"Some doctors have made some substantial investments in some of the other buildings," Graham said.

Graham said he has spoken with Mayor Bobby Irons about reconfiguring the intersection of Royal Avenue and Huntsville Road.

Royal Avenue and Huntsville Road will also be resurfaced as part of the city's $7 million repaving project.

Leyde said the city has an option on property on Royal Avenue that could be developed into a parking lot.

Bailey said the city made the right move with the zoning changes in the Sweetwater

district.

While the development has been slow, Bailey said there are people interested in the area.

"We continue to get calls on a weekly, sometimes daily basis, basically from potential developers," Bailey said. "Any redevelopment effort is going to take time."

Joe McCollister, an employee of the House of Vacuums, a long-time Sweetwater area business, said business is about the same as it has been, and he hasn't seen many changes since the city created the new district.

He did note that a building across the street has been renovated. There are also three empty buildings just east of The House of Vacuums.

McCollister said he has no problem with the zoning changes to the Sweetwater area.

"I think it's good," he said. "It will be good to see business come in and take advantage of it. Anything to get business down here," he said.

Russ Corey can be reached at 740-5738 or russ.corey@timesdaily.com.