Fountain centerpiece to honor civic leader
Family of late Tom Thrasher gives city addition to canal
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Huntsville's downtown canal will open next summer with a big splash.
The waterway will feature a huge fountain with colorful lights and water plumes that can be choreographed to music.
The City Council tonight will consider a $284,000 development deal with Big Spring Partners Inc. to construct the fountain. It will be in a flared part of the canal just beyond the new arched Monroe Street bridge where the canal juts from Big Spring lagoon.
The fountain is a gift from the Thrasher family of Huntsville in memory of Tom Thrasher, a business and civic leader who died in 1999. The project includes benches and landscaping and decorative brick pavers.
The fountain will be the centerpiece in a planned 1,000-foot canal separating the 10-story Embassy Suites Hotel and the Von Braun Center's South Hall. The waterway and adjacent green space is part of an expansion of Big Spring International Park.
"This is something the city wanted to do, but it was not affordable without the generosity of the family," said Huntsville Mayor Loretta Spencer. "The fountain, the benches, the landscaping, the walkways will all be features in the park the public can enjoy."
The Thrashers will donate the money to Big Spring Partners, a nonprofit organization that supports downtown development efforts of the city through donations and private investments. Big Spring Partners plans to contract the fountain job to Southern Aquatics of Jacksonville, Fla., which built the interactive fountain in Bicentennial Park downtown.
The canal will feature two circular basins, two pre-cast bridges similar to the Monroe Street bridge and a stepping-stone bridge. Other features include brick pavement, decorative light fixtures, handrails and park benches. The City Council awarded Miller & Miller Inc. a $3.4 million contract to build the canal. The city is supplying $2.4 million of the cost and the federal Economic Development Administration is providing $1 million.
Spencer said the location for the Thrasher memorial is particularly fitting, given Tom Thrasher's business history and storied involvement in the development of the VBC.
Thrasher owned Thrasher Oil Co., which had its office where the VBC complex now sits. He was a lieutenant colonel in the Army before starting the company in 1946.
He was instrumental in the establishment of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, active with the local Industrial Development Board and was chairman of the Von Braun Center Board of Control. He also served on the Huntsville school board and was involved in other community leadership positions.
The fountain should be completed early next summer. The $40 million, 300-room Embassy Suites is scheduled to open by late fall 2006.
© 2005 The Huntsville Times
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