By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – The city of Alabaster has finalized a deal to sell a piece of formerly city-owned property along Alabama 119 to a developer working to bring a Hardee’s restaurant and other developments to the area.

Alabaster City Manager Brian Binzer said the city closed the sale in mid-July, and sold the property to the developer for about $680,000. Binzer said the revenues from the sale will help to fund a currently under-construction project to extend Fulton Springs Road to U.S. 31 south of the South Promenade shopping center.

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

Once completed, the development will be near the intersection of Alabama 119 and Thompson Road and across Alabama 119 from Thompson Intermediate School. The Hardee’s corporation will purchase the property for the restaurant from the developer, but Alabaster Montevallo LLC will own and work to developer the other parcels surrounding the restaurant.

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

“They are ready to begin construction on the Hardee’s soon,” Binzer said, noting the company is looking to have the restaurant open later this fall. “They want to get it done before the holidays get here.”

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.

In January, the City Council approved an agreement with the Alabama Department of Transportation to install new traffic lights at the intersection of Alabama 119 and Thompson Road to handle traffic traveling into and out of the new development.

In December 2016, the council voted to rezone the proposed development’s six acres from municipal reserve to B-3, or community business.