By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – A developer now has the green light to purchase land and begin work on a new commercial development along Alabama 119 in Alabaster after the City Council voted unanimously during its Nov. 28 meeting to rezone the property.

City Council members agreed to rezone about six acres of currently undeveloped land off Alabama 119 slightly south of its intersection with Thompson Road from municipal reserve to B-3, or community business. The council’s vote came after a public hearing on the matter, during which one person spoke in favor of the rezoning and nobody spoke against.

The city’s Planning and Zoning Commission previously voted to recommend the rezoning.

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. The Alabaster CDA acquired the land in 2013 through an agreement with the nearby Martin-Marietta quarry.

Developer Tamera Langford, with the Alabaster Montevallo LLC company, currently is in negotiations with the city to purchase the land, she said previously.

After the development company purchases the land, it will begin working to bring several tenants, including a Hardee’s restaurant, Langford said after a recent Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. The development also may include a gas station and a small strip shopping center, she said.

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, Mark Gonzalez with Gonzales Strength Associates, the civil engineering firm working on the development, said previously.

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. She said she is looking to start construction on the Hardee’s restaurant in December.

Langford said the development’s design will follow the guidelines laid out in the city’s recently passed overlay district along Alabama 119.