Celebrate Alabama: The Good and the Bad (Montgomery, Decatur: hotels, travel)

[danmandr]

Celebrate Alabama if you have not heard is going to be the ultimate shopping destination in Alabama. It will cover over 500 acres and be located in Opelika, AL. near Auburn, AL. It will have over 50 restaurants, countless shopping venues, a greenspace with bronze statues of past famous Alabamians, and several nice hotels with one having an indoor water park. The Celebrate Alabama website has not been created yet but if you want to get a visual of the size and scope of this project go to Celebrate Virginia and take a look at what they have done. Although Celebrate Viriginia is about three times as large as Celebrate Alabama will be, this is still a BIG deal. The I-85 corridor is very busy and carries mountains of tourists from Atlanta to New Orleans.

What do you all think of the potential impact on our community? Does anyone disagree with the plan to build? Anyone excited for this build? Voice your concerns.

[Keeper]

I haven't heard of it but it sounds like it would be good thing for the area.

[Southlander]

I'm disappointed at the location. It's a long way from Decatur to Auburn, and not an easy drive. (Plus the fact that it's near the home of "that OTHER state university LOL!!). I can see the logic for the developers & owners...and they're not really out to benefit Alabamians.

[Reactionary]

'Celebrate Virginia' is huge (planned: 2400 acres, 2 golf courses, 3 million sf retail, 1400 unit retirement community, 4 hotels, 3 million sf office space, convention center, and museums). I like the 'edu-tainment' and 'retail resort' concept. Good for Opelika.

[Alatex]

Over 50 restaurants ? In one development in Opelika ?

Tourist attraction or not, you have to have some baseline of local
support to keep restaurants going. Are people from Columbus and Auburn
and so on really willing to provide enough daily business to support 50+ new restaurants in Opelika ?

[danmandr]

The developer himself was quoted saying that this development cannot rely upon local business. It has to come from touists traveling on I-85 from Atlanta and so on.

[Alatex]

Unless the development is very heavily subsidized, I just don't see 50+ new restaurants speculatively popping up at a rural interstate cutoff on the hope that tourists from Georgia will magically materialize to "celebrate Alabama."

[ATLCOL1]

I think it is a great idea. It is a perfect location that is near major metro areas like Columbus, Atlanta, and Montgomery.

[pennquaker09]

I think it would make more sense for it to be in northern Alabama.

[Cowboy67]

Although, the Opelika USA outlet mall is much smaller, it too was supposed to bring in a lot of business, but look at it. This is a major flop waiting to happen. There would be a much better business say closer to Montgomery where 85 & 65 merge.

I live about a mile or so away from the location and am not looking forward to the added traffic that will be coming by my country house.

Plus, Opelika cannot even get their other projects off the drawing board, the Capps farm shopping center came to a halt and they, Opelika do not even know what went wrong. Opelika says they had a big anchor store who committed but the store says otherwise. Now all that NATURAL green space has gone to waste and sits as a dusty/muddy field.

I am affraid that is what is going to happen to Celebrate Alabama. We people in Opelika are going to be stuck with an eyesore, just like our broken down mills.