The Tuscaloosa City Council convened for a brief meeting focused on a single, high-value agenda item: establishing the 2026 Budget for the ELEVATE bond series. The meeting centered on allocating $16 million toward two specific infrastructure projects: the Northern River Walk Phase Two and the Greensboro Avenue Streetscape. While the Council President expressed initial hesitation about the project's scale and changes to historic street aesthetics, the discussion ultimately highlighted significant stakeholder adjustments and a strong consensus among local business owners to support the revitalization efforts.
Northern River Walk Phase Two:
Greensboro Avenue Streetscape:
Minutes are adopted. Mr. Andrews. We appear to be a one item agenda, however, 16 million dollars. Yeah, one item let's not try and screw this up, right? Okay, so good afternoon, council. This item is requesting to establish the budget for the 2026 B warrant series. Last year, go back a couple of weeks to uh December 9th. We proposed an item for reimbursement resolution that would allow us to go ahead and start work on two projects in the elevate uh bond issue, the upcoming elevate bond issuance. Those two were the Northern River Walk phase two and then Greensboro Avenue. That was passed through finance committee. We have since drafted the reimbursement resolution, and it will be on next Tuesday's city council agenda for full approval. And so in conjunction with that, we are asking to create the budget for those two projects as well so that OCE can move forward on some of the uh design work for the two projects. So that would create a budget of 10 million dollars for Northern River Walk and six million dollars for Greensboro Avenue that is in um accordance with the LA tenure plan. Any questions? Does that reimbursement um motion that we approve does that allow us to go through the whole 16 million reimbursement? No, sir. No, there's a five million dollar spend up front. Okay, and then I do um I I know we've talked some on the Greensboro Avenue project uh on the um the river walk, uh Mike or Bill. I'll give y'all your option if there's an update from that, or if you want to just give a um a thumbnail overview of what's going on for 10 million dollars. Yes, sir. So uh the Northern Riverwalk, not to repeat anything folks may have heard during projects committee, but the stage we're at there, we are near completion with design. Uh what this budget allotment will allow us to do is the final portions of the design, basically the last 10% of the design completion, as well as uh get under contract all of the services that we would need from the consultant throughout the construction project. Like what? Uh so that would include uh inspections in the field, so making sure that our technical expertise that designed the project is in the field, watching the construction and making sure it's built to the quality that we need, making sure that specifications required for paving installation are meeting the requirements of the technical specifications. So those are the types of services that McGifford, our consultant will provide throughout the construction phase, and that's what will be under contract, and we can go to that phase with this budget allotment that we're talking here today. Okay, and and I know Mr. Crowe's followed that closely and uh been all in y'all's uh all that. Yeah, so I feel pretty comfortable on that. I uh I would like does anybody else either members or non-members have any questions on the river, the northern river walk, please. Well, I I do want you to there has been some some moving about on the Greensboro Avenue project, and um you know we've had citizens' meetings, we've had meetings with you and I and the engineers, the lawyers out on the streets. We've had meetings with the mayors, not plural but singular. Um the it's a big project. Apparently it got 50% bigger since the last sighting I had of it. How about updating us as to what's going on there and what's changing with it? Sir, so um for the Greensboro A Streetscape project. This is two blocks uh south of University Boulevard on Greensboro app, so from Greensboro to 7th Street, and the intent of that project is to try to increase the pedestrian and walkability within that uh economic footprint. And so the project intends to accomplish that by eliminating some of the paving that's there. The we've done some analysis on the traffic throughput in that area. It really does not warrant or need two lanes of traffic each direction to accommodate the traffic that is really using that section of Greensboro to get to downtown rather than through downtown. Um so the the objective of the project is to take some of that paving and turn it into uh more of a pedestrian experience to that downtown area. Uh the phase that we're at with that project, we were near completion with the design. Uh, to your appointment to get some really valuable input from merchants in the area, uh other stakeholders that have some experience and vested interest in the area downtown. Uh clued us in on some things that have not been in the design that will accommodate deliveries. So things like uh Uber Eats, uh Bama Theater entrance. So demoth theater operations that are unique to their environment where there's buses, other things. So some scenarios for deliveries that we we benefited from the feedback and have made some adjustments to the design. So now we'll have some some areas that are better established for loading zones and deliveries and all those scenarios that we were uh provided from the merchants in the area. Mr. Chairman, yeah, go ahead.