By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Thompson High School graduate Josh Carden and his grandmother will be able to move into a new volunteer-built house in Alabaster after volunteers complete final drainage improvements to the property, the project’s organizer said on Nov. 29.

The Josh Carden Project began working to build a new house for Carden after his grandfather was struck by a car and killed in 2010 while he was crossing Fulton Springs Road to help Carden cross the street.

The group has been working for the past few years to construct the new house for Carden and his grandmother using donated materials and labor.

“The house is at the bottom of a hill, so we just have to make a few more drainage changes,” said Josh Carden Project organizer Jeff Brooks.

Once the house is inspected and the certificate of occupancy is granted by the city of Alabaster, Carden, who has cerebral palsy, and his grandmother will be set to move in. Carden and his grandmother currently live in a house in a heavy industrial area near an interstate overpass on Fulton Springs Road.

“Once that certificate of occupancy is granted, they will get the paperwork ready for us (to move Carden and his grandmother in),” said Richard Bite, an attorney for the Carden family. “We are anxious to move the family in.”

“As soon as we can get that certificate of occupancy, we can get them in,” said Pelham attorney Jim Odom, who is representing the Josh Carden Project.

Bite said the house is set up as a trust, and said the First United Methodist Church of Alabaster will assume ownership of the home if Carden and his grandmother pass away or move out of the house in the future.

“They want to make sure in the future that the house goes to someone with that handicap,” Bite said.