By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – The Alabaster City Council has signed off on a new pair of traffic lights at the intersection of Alabama 119 and Thompson Road, which will serve traffic coming out of a new Hardee’s development near the intersection.

During a Dec. 29 meeting, City Council members voted unanimously to enter into an agreement with the Alabama Department of Transportation to modify the current traffic signal at the intersection.

Through the agreement, ALDOT will install two new traffic signals on the west side of the intersection to serve traffic coming out of the new development, which will be constructed on the east side of the intersection. After the new signals are installed, the city will maintain them, according to the agreement.

The ALDOT agreement came about a month after the council voted to rezone six acres of currently undeveloped property slightly south of the Alabama 119-Thompson Road intersection from municipal reserve to B-3, or community business.

The developer, Tamara Langford, with the Alabaster Montevallo LLC company, previously said she is planning to bring several tenants, including a Hardee’s restaurant, to the land. The development also may include a gas station and a small strip shopping center, she said.

After purchasing the property from the Alabaster Commercial Development Authority, 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. Langford said the development’s design will follow the guidelines laid out in the city’s recently passed overlay district along Alabama 119.

Plans for the development 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.

ALDOT also is working with the city to widen Thompson Road between Alabama 119 and Warrior Drive, and currently is working on the preliminary construction phase for the project.