By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – A developer is planning to bring a Hardee’s restaurant to one of Alabaster’s main corridors, she announced during a recent Alabaster Planning and Zoning Commission meeting.

During its Sept. 27 meeting, the commission voted unanimously to rezone about six acres of currently undeveloped land off Alabama 119 slightly south of its intersection with Thompson Road to B-3, or community business. The rezoning will now move on to the Alabaster City Council, which will make the final decision on the matter during an upcoming meeting.

The land is on the east side of Alabama 119, includes about 1,500 feet of frontage on the road and currently is owned by the Alabaster Commercial Development Authority. Developer Tamera Langford, with the Alabaster Montevallo LLC company, currently is in negotiations with the city to purchase the land, she said.

After the development company purchases the land, it will begin working to bring several tenants, including a Hardee’s restaurant, Langford said.

“Hardee’s is definitely on board,” Langford said during an interview after the meeting. “We are also in talks with a gas station, and we are looking to possibly do a small strip shopping center as well.”

Plans call for a turn lane into the property off of Alabama 119 north, and the Alabama Department of Transportation has already approved the concept, said Mark Gonzalez with Gonzales Strength Associates, the civil engineering firm working on the development.

The Alabaster City Council recently passed a temporary moratorium on certain types of development along the Alabama 119 corridor as the city finalizes its overlay district along the road.

Once approved, the overlay district will determine the type and appearance of all future developments along the corridor.

“We’ve done a lot of research so far, we’ve reviewed the (proposed) overlay district,” Gonzalez said. “Our plan is to mimic those guidelines.”

Langford said her company is planning to develop the land in phases, with Hardee’s coming first, followed by the gas station and possible strip shopping development.

“They will start construction on the Hardee’s in December,” Langford said.