STG building off North Parkway to be razed March 1
Friday, January 27, 2006
It was a bank, and currently houses a business and an office for radio stations. Soon, the STG Media building along North Memorial Parkway will be razed and turned into green space.
The demolition is part of a city effort to remove buildings from flood-prone areas and improve drainage. The work will pave the way for an eventual plan to widen the Pinhook Creek channel and add landscaping and paths for a riverwalk of sorts that could thread through downtown.
The Huntsville City Council authorized a $125,000 contract Thursday for Britt Demolition and Recycling of Hanceville to tear down the building just south of the MarketSquare plaza. The building, which houses the business offices of radio stations WAHR-FM 99.1, WRTT-FM 95.1 and WLOR-AM 1550 as well as T Shepard's Discount Music, was once the home to 1st American Federal bank.
The demolition will begin March 1 and will be completed by the end of the month, said Bruce Taylor, director of Facilities Projects Management for Huntsville.
City Planning Director Dallas Fanning said the city is working with the Army Corps of Engineers to extend the creek improvements to Clinton Avenue and eventually to Holmes Avenue. Pinhook runs between the Von Braun Center and MarketSquare and will soon be linked to the Big Spring International Park lagoon with a man-made 1,000-foot canal.
The enhancements seem a natural extension of work being done to accommodate the new Embassy Suites Hotel and future planned redevelopment of the Market Square site.
The city is chipping in $4 million for the waterway improvements and the federal government is committed to $7 million. U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville, helped secure some of the federal grant money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"It's a part of the overall flood control project and certainly, flood control is an inducement for redevelopment in the area," said Ben Ferrill of the city planning staff.
In other business Thursday night, the council got an update on a proposed dog park.
Karen Hill, director of animal services for the city, said a task force will meet next week to discuss space, legal and cost issues. Hill and Councilman Glenn Watson have been pushing for a dog park for the past year or so.
Dog parks typically include wide open spaces with fencing to segregate animals from non-dog owners nearby. Hill said Thursday night an ideal site would have at least two fenced acres, restrooms and parking.
An earlier proposal for Creekwood Park at the northern trail head to the Indian Creek Greenway has been scrapped because of flooding concerns.
The park would be an area where owners could let their pets run unleashed. It could also be yet another venue where people could meet and have common things to talk about. Hill said dog parks are popular in other parts of the country and seem to be catching on in the South. "They go over fantastic," she said.
There's even a Web site dedicated to dog parks, also known as "bark parks": www.dogpark.com.
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