'It's wise to table it': City Council delays vote on downtown Tuscaloosa apartments

It’s going to take at least two more weeks before city leaders decide whether to approve the construction plans for a new, multi-use development in downtown Tuscaloosa.

A unanimous City Council on Tuesday opted to table a vote on the $30 million, six-story development “Life on Fourth” – the “Warehouse on Fourth” name pertained to a prior version of the project – that’s projected to bring 190 new bedrooms and 14,419 square feet of commercial or office space to a now-vacant lot at 2104 Fourth St., across from the retail center that houses Loosa Brews.

Tuesday’s vote, which is required under the guidelines of the city’s Downtown Riverfront Overlay District, was to be at least the fourth time the City Council had given its blessing and the seventh overall attempt by First Paramount LLC and longtime apartment developer Ford Waters to construct something on the now-vacant lot at 2104 Fourth St., across from the retail center that houses Loosa Brews.

Now, that decision will come on June 28.

Read this: Developer of six-story, 190-bed apartment project seeks Tuscaloosa City Council approval

'Outrageous': Tuscaloosa leaders look to state lawmakers to help quell community violence

“I think it’s wise to table it,” said City Council President Kip Tyner. “I feel like it’s been going on for 20 years.

“This property has almost been jinxed in some way – promise to promise. I’m not saying broken promises, but promising things.”

If the council does, in fact, vote to approve Waters’ plans once again, it will do so in opposition to its Planning and Zoning Commission, which voted 5-1 in March against recommending this project for approval over a number of unresolved or unanswered questions and concerns. Some of those issues included where mechanical devices would be located in each apartment, the lack of storage space in each apartment unit and the proximity of power poles to balconies.

The floor plans for some of the 10 studio apartments, five one-bedroom units, 25 three-bedroom apartments and 50 two-bedroom apartments also have layouts that fit the city’s previously-enacted definitions of student-oriented housing. Adopted in September 2020, these codified regulations allow the city’s zoning officials to better manage, oversee and regulate construction applications to determine how planned projects fit within proposed and existing city codes and permissions.

“Students will live privately in their bedroom because they have so much space,” said Caitlin Giles, the city of Tuscaloosa’s development review coordinator, “but if a family were to live here … essentially, the living rooms are so small that they wouldn’t be functional for a family.”

Waters has said he doesn’t intend to market the apartments to college students or rent them out by the bedroom.

Instead, his plans call for leasing them as entire units to whoever is willing to pay for them.

“While I understand what they’re saying, we’re going to rent to everybody,” Waters said last week.

Still, the concern that Life on Fourth could become another large-scale, student housing development remains.

'Unacceptable': Tuscaloosa leaders, police and prosecutors seek ways to curb violence

In other news: Road upgrades will improve parking, access for visitors at Sokol Park North

“This is a public safety issue and it really concerns me,” said District 6 Councilman John Faile. “That dead-end street, the nearness to the bars and the student housing.

“They can form it into whatever they want to say, but your grandmother is not going to rent that apartment.”

The council last approved plans for a Waters development on this site in 2020. That year, Waters was proposing a five-story, 196-bedroom development with 19,217 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.

This design, as well as the then-273 parking spaces – 200 underground and 73 on the surface – was the exact same one that the City Council also unanimously approved under the Downtown Riverfront Overlay District rules in August 2019.

But because construction failed to begin within a year, the council’s approval expired under the district’s rules, requiring Waters to again seek permission for construction.

Reach Jason Morton at jason.morton@tuscaloosanews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Tuscaloosa City Council delays vote on downtown apartments