The following article was printed in the Mobile Press-Register on Tuesday, October 28.





A revamped Mobile Civic Center, a medical research corridor and a boat slip near Dauphin Street for dinner cruises were all part of the new plan for downtown Mobile unveiled Monday.

City planners spent nearly two hours explaining the many details of the plan, which recommended more than 150 actions for the city to take.

Some of the changes could start taking place as soon as a few months from now, said Russ Archambault, one of the planners, while others could take more than a
decade.

Win Hallett, the head of the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce, sat through the presentation, held at the Civic Center. He said the amount of detail in the plan was overwhelming.

"You get a little dizzy trying to figure all that out," he said.

The city paid urban planning firm EDSA Inc. $400,000 to revise the city's 12-year-old master plan, which covers an area bordered to the east by the Mobile River, the south by Interstate 10 and Duval Street, the west by Houston
Street and the north by Three Mile Creek and the neighborhoods north of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.

The entire plan will eventually be posted on a Web site the city created for it, www.newmobileplan.com.

Here are just some of the details:

The Civic Center would remain intact, but the city would partner with a developer to replace the building's massive parking lot with a parking garage. The extra space would then be turned into a mixed-use commercial and residential development.

The part of Water Street just south of the Interstate 165 entrance would be home to several mid-rise office buildings, making it the city's "skyline office
district," according to planner Keith Weaver. The post office on the corner of St. Joseph and Congress streets could move into one of those buildings, freeing up that land for a park.

St. Stephens Road and Spring Hill Avenue would become a medical-technology corridor, Weaver said. The city would install high-speed broadband Internet lines down the street and partner with local universities to move medical research facilities there.

The city would create a "wireless cloud" over downtown Mobile, offering free wireless broadband Internet access throughout the Hank Aaron Loop. That would help encourage young people to move downtown.

The Alabama Department of Transportation would tear down the onramps leading from Water Street to Interstate 10 and the Wallace Tunnel. Motorists would drive farther down Water Street until they reached the Canal Street entrance. That would allow Fort Conde Village to expand with more homes and businesses.

A boat slip would be built at the north side of the Arthur R. Outlaw Mobile Convention Center on Water Street. The slip would be home to a dinner-cruise ship or water taxi.

The city would target a few intersections, such as the
corner of Broad Street and Spring Hill, and offer incentives to businesses, such as grocery stores, to move there.

Barton Academy would be transformed into either a culinary arts or performing-arts school.

A new quasi-governmental organization would be formed to help put together large developments by purchasing and combining smaller lots.

The city would create new historic districts for the Oakdale and Maysville neighborhoods.

The city would turn the old Hickory Street landfill into a sports academy and park.

In November, the planners will give their final draft to Mayor Sam Jones, Archambault said. The city's Planning Commission and then the City Council would make the downtown plan part of the city's master plan, he said.

After that, city leaders would likely begin finding funding sources for the different actions the plan recommends, he said.

This article was added on Tuesday, Oct 28, 2008