Developers look to west Huntsville
New project has lofts, mansion-like homes, restaurants
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Suddenly chic west Huntsville may be about to land another major housing development.
The still-unnamed neighborhood, bankrolled by Madison construction contractor Doug Gooch and Decatur insurance broker Rex Rankin III, would feature hip restaurants, loft apartments, a soaring glass conservatory and pricey homes resembling the Civil War-era mansions on Franklin Street.
And it'll happen just around the corner from the Village of Providence, an even larger mixed-use development that helped spark the area's renaissance.
"We've got a great idea, I think," Gooch said Wednesday. "We're fortunate that Providence sort of paved the way for us."
Gooch, 47, is best known locally as owner of the now-closed Sister Gooch restaurant on Slaughter Road. But he's an architect at heart.
After graduating from the University of Kansas, Gooch worked with other designers on the master plan for Universal Studios Florida.
Along the way, he became a fan of New Urbanism, an architectural movement that favors compact, walkable, self-contained neighborhoods - think Twickenham and Old Town - over standard subdivisions built far from schools and stores.
Providence, which has its own pizza parlor, burger joint and dessert shop, is following those principles.
Gooch's 55-acre development on Old Monrovia Road would have a similar feel, but he said he doesn't see it as competing with Providence.
"As a restaurant owner, I always encouraged more restaurants," he said. "The more we can do to add excitement to that area, the better it'll be for all of us."
Before the bulldozers roll, Gooch and Rankin have to get part of the property annexed into Huntsville. Then city planners have to sign off on the design, a process that can take up to six months.
If all goes well, Gooch said, the first residents could move in by late 2006.
Plans call for a 20-acre retail village on the north side of Old Monrovia Road, with 35 acres of loft apartments, condominiums and single-family homes across the street.
The neighborhood's signature will be a Victorian-style glass conservatory for weddings, chamber-music performances and other community functions.
The condos, priced from about $120,000 to $180,000, should appeal to young, single professionals, Gooch said. He figures families with children will snap up the larger homes, which will be an easy walk from both Country Day School and Providence School, a K-8 city campus opening this fall.
But that convenience will come at a steep price: Gooch said he expects the biggest houses to sell for about $1 million each.
Gooch, who is vice president of a successful family-owned business, Wheeler Schrimsher Contracting Co., said he and Rankin plan to finance the multimillion-dollar project themselves.
The pair have also proposed spending about $250 million to convert Decatur's aging Point Mallard park into a swanky mixed-use development called River Country, with shops, rental cottages, hotels, golf course, yacht harbor and sports fields.
As a first step, elected leaders in Decatur would have to let Gooch and Rankin assume the city's lease on the land, which is owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
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