City’s work moves forward

The future, quite honestly, may be now in Trussville.

Downtown loop roads, a new fire station and an expanded Trussville City Hall are all projects of importance in 2022, Trussville Mayor Buddy Choat said.

“I think all three of those could be going on about the same time in 2022,” he said.

The first loop road connection to be constructed will begin at Talley Street and pass in front of where the Trussville Church of Christ building once was and behind Trussville First United Methodist Church. It will connect with Glenn Avenue, which ends at the intersection with Main Street by Marco’s Pizza, where there is now a traffic signal.

The second loop road connection to be constructed will involve creating a road beside and around Trussville Pediatric Dentistry that connects with Vann Circle and ends at the intersection with Main Street by Edgar’s Bakery, where, Choat said, the Alabama Department of Transportation has indicated another traffic signal may be constructed.

Choat said it will take 18 to 24 months to complete the “much-needed” project.

Choat said a fourth fire station will be constructed in 2022, likely in the Norris Farms area of Trussville-Clay Road. Choat said his hope is that the new station will include all the administrative offices that are currently at the Administration Building on Cherokee Drive. The city’s Inspections Department could be located at the new station, too.

Choat said another major project to likely begin in 2022 is the expansion of Trussville City Hall into the administration building that sits between City Hall and the Trussville Utilities building on Main Street.

The new building would be a two-story facility with the Trussville City Council chambers on the main floor and staff on the second floor. The current City Hall building would become a Public Safety building for the Trussville Police Department and Trussville Fire Station No. 1.

Choat said the hope is to tie the design in with the new Trussville Utilities building design, blending modern with the historic architecture of the nearby Cahaba Project.

“I think there are a lot of things you’ll see over the next two-to-three years kind of come to fruition,” Choat said.

Additionally, Choat said the downtown entertainment district buildout should be complete by the end of 2022. There is currently a freestanding restaurant being constructed.

An Alabama Fallen Warriors memorial project is planned for the Veterans Park area, to be built mostly with private donations, Choat said. It will be 11 rows across and 11 down with a flagpole in the middle. Engraved dog tags will adorn concrete markers honoring fallen service members. The plan is to dedicate the project on Memorial Day.

“We’re pretty excited about that,” Choat said. “It’s a great project. I’m excited that we want to do it.”

Recreationally, the Trussville Civic Center will have all new exercise equipment in 2022. The city may convert a small baseball field into a Miracle League field soon. Choat said a gymnastics center will be built behind the civic center. The city’s gymnastics program currently has 300 children participating, and the cheer program has 400. Freeing up the blue gym at the city’s Parks and Recreation building on Parkway Drive — the former Hewitt-Trussville Junior High School — will allow more space for recreational basketball, which saw an increase from around 220 kids to 300 over the past year, Choat said.

“We just think we have an opportunity to have something very special here,” Choat said.

As the population of Trussville has grown, more housing developments, especially in the U.S. 11 area on the north end of the city, are under discussion. The latest U.S. Census figures reported in 2020 show a population of 26,123, a 10-year increase of about 31%. With so much growth and opportunity, specific goals in Trussville’s 2040 Plan may come to fruition a decade or more early.

“I guess the key word is the ‘vision’ of keeping Trussville moving forward,” Choat said. “I think 2022 could be another year for opportunity and still be part of that vision that we’ve talked about in our 2040 Plan.”

A large item in that 2040 Plan was the construction of a fourth elementary school to alleviate overcrowding at Paine Elementary School. It would appear that fourth elementary school could be approaching adolescence by the time 2040 rolls around. Choat said the Glendale Farms area along U.S. 11 is the likely destination for it, and would likely need to be constructed to hold 800 to 1,000 students. He said Paine Elementary is already up to close to 1,350 students, and 1,500 is the maximum before portable classrooms are used again.

Choat and key stakeholders in the city planned for this fourth elementary school, for this continued growth, but, “I just didn’t know it was going to come this soon.”