Town Madison Update Thread (Huntsville, Athens: rooftop, sushi, yard)

[AU HSV]

I see it as a win for the community. Before Madison was being held hostage by Aldot and a roadblock to growth, a common tactic they use. This time they were told to get off their ass and finish the thing. Of course the area will pay for it now that the Governor has embarrassed them. Probably see even more delays on the flyover ramps or other projects Madison and even Huntsville need.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by AU HSV

I see it as a win for the community. Before Madison was being held hostage by Aldot and a roadblock to growth, a common tactic they use. This time they were told to get off their ass and finish the thing. Of course the area will pay for it now that the Governor has embarrassed them. Probably see even more delays on the flyover ramps or other projects Madison and even Huntsville need.

Yes, no doubt. I think ALDOT is actually trying to stymie growth in this area by not building needed roads, or screwing around for years when they do.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by Colin24816

I know ALDOT gets bashed a lot for the road problems in this area and I do that too when I see the roads around here getting ignored with all of the growth, but that is Huntsville, Madison and Athens too. It is also not Huntsville, Madison or Athens responsibility to maintain state and federal highways other than paying their share of matching funds on these projects.

Believe it or not, I worked for ALDOT for 34.5 years and retired in 2013. My job was inspecting contractor's work on a wide variety of road projects and documenting the work done, the quantities used, locations and some other stuff. Most of the projects I worked on were resurfacing projects, some of which I worked on four different occasions. I worked on a section of I-22 in Marion County back in the late 80's, 15 miles of new 4 lane construction on Al. Hwy. 24 from mile marker 33 in Franklin County east of Russellville, to mile marker 48 in Lawrence County, west of Moulton. The base and pave project alone had 94,000+ tons of asphalt, consisting of around 14 different pay items. Some were for the mainline, some for the shoulders and some for the side road tie ins.

I have inspected bridges under construction and have witnessed just how powerful ice can be. On the hwy. 24 project the bridge contractor poured two of the bridge bent caps on Christmas Eve back in 1991. These caps are the section of the bridges that the concrete girders would rest on. The girders have to be bolted down at a later date and in order to do that, the contractor placed corrugated 4" plastic pipe vertically in the rebar cage so that there would be a void where the bolts could be inserted and grouted in. After poring the concrete, the contractor should have covered the pipe with masking tape to keep rain out of the voids. That night, rain came in and then the temperatures dropped below freezing. Several days later, when they came back to strip the formwork, we got a phone call from the contractor that we needed to come out to the bridges to see what happened to the caps.

The caps had cracked about 20' from one end and the crack went diagonally to the same end and almost to the opposite side. The crack in each cap was around 2" wide and top to bottom. The caps were 40' long, 5' wide and 5' high with #6 (3/4") rebar tied together on 8" centers. The concrete was hard but still green, so that didn't help with its compressive strength. Had it been 30 days later, it may have not cracked.

Another project, also cold prior to paving on Hwy. 24 closer to Decatur, the contractor for this project was setting up to do a test strip on the start of the wearing surface layer. This an approximately 500 ton stretch of asphalt that gets done on every paving projects top layer and has multiple tests performed on it. These tests determine the air voids, asphalt content and density of the surface layer
. They have to use a Shuttle Buggy or a material transfer device to take the asphalt from the dump truck to the paver to minimize the paver having to stop because of no truck being there for several minutes. When the equipment was lined up to pave, the first load of asphalt was dumped into the shuttle buggy that was on the job and this then transferred the asphalt to the paver. Only problem then was that no one from the contractor checked to see if there was any water in the shuttle buggy's hopper. There was and instantly cooled the asphalt down so that the conveyor became clogged. After cleaning that out and continuing the paving, chunks of hardened asphalt were found in the wearing surface, some of which were leaving streaks and gouges in the finish. Each one had to be dug out and fixed. This test strip was almost 5000' lons and 12' wide. They had to come back in and mill up the test strip, clean the surface and then do another test strip without any further payment.

As you can see, problems can pop up when precautions aren't taken.

When most mention Huntsville, they mean the entire Hutntsville/Madison/Athens/Decatur area. It's not limited to to being inside the Huntsville city limits. In fact, most of the need is probably outside the city.

Speaking of Hwy 24 - why did they put down tar and gravel strips in both lanes (west of Moulton), then leave it that way for years? It was noisy and no doubt caused excessive tire wear, and there was no way to avoid driving over the graveled areas.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by harry chickpea

The good-ol'-boy network is alive and well. The developer was successful in gaming the system.

https://www.waff.com/2021/03/01/gove...-town-madison/

Don't know if that's gaming the system as much as it is just common sense. Both ramps have been essentially ready to go for months without being opened, so something had to be done. Looks like the eastbound off ramp, the one that goes up the cliff, is still missing some streetlights, and they're needed in that area. This also should make Breland get off his butt and start work on the flyovers (I understand he's getting ALDOT's help, but if they use the governor's letter as a reason to not cooperate, I'm sure they will. They were petty enough to not do their duty after the billboard fiasco a few years ago).

[Colin24816]

Originally Posted by RocketDawg

When most mention Huntsville, they mean the entire Hutntsville/Madison/Athens/Decatur area. It's not limited to to being inside the Huntsville city limits. In fact, most of the need is probably outside the city.

Speaking of Hwy 24 - why did they put down tar and gravel strips in both lanes (west of Moulton), then leave it that way for years? It was noisy and no doubt caused excessive tire wear, and there was no way to avoid driving over the graveled areas.

It was a temporary fix until it could be resurfaced at a later date. Even though the first several miles west of Moulton to County Road 83 in Franklin County were the first built, they were also the last to be resurfaced. I have not figured that one out yet althought I think the roadbed had more layers of asphalt than those west of it.

[AU HSV]

Originally Posted by RocketDawg

Yes, no doubt. I think ALDOT is actually trying to stymie growth in this area by not building needed roads, or screwing around for years when they do.

I would be shocked if Breland actually pays for the westbound flyovers as he said. If he does it could be 5 years or more. Probably work a new deal with aldot now that the existing ramps will be opened.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by AU HSV

I would be shocked if Breland actually pays for the westbound flyovers as he said. If he does it could be 5 years or more. Probably work a new deal with aldot now that the existing ramps will be opened.

He might pay what he initially planned to pay. I think it was $17 or $18M. The makeup of Town Madison will no doubt depend to a great degree on a full interchange. At some point they'll probably get federal funds for the project, but presumably ALDOT is who determines who gets what with federal funding.

What ever happened to the $2B or so that Mobile didn't spend on the bridge? Did it just vanish?

[dijkstra]

Originally Posted by AU HSV

I would be shocked if Breland actually pays for the westbound flyovers as he said. If he does it could be 5 years or more. Probably work a new deal with aldot now that the existing ramps will be opened.

Since the first day I read about the westbound interchange deal, I have been saying good luck getting that built. lol So......I still haven't heard anything......have the lawsuits started yet? I would be shocked if he pays for it too. It will probably end up tied up in court until Madison and ALDOT end up just having to eat it and build them.

[Big Grumpy]

Breland's not technically paying for anything relative to the interchange, he's only fronting the money to pay for the interchange construction. He will eventually be reimbursed for his entire outlay of funds and get 5% interest from the the City of Madison via tax dollars collected from businesses within the Town Madison Cooperative District. So, it's really the City of Madison that's on the hook for the $30 million in interchange costs and $43 million in stadium construction costs, not Louis Breland. And that's why Paul Finley and company weren't happy to see the costs for the westbound flyovers at $28+ million when they anticpated paying about $18 million.

The problem that currently exists for Breland is that there's very little retail onsite at Town Madison to generate tax dollars for him to get reimbursed. There's basically Duluth Trading, Avid Hotel, Home2Suites hotel, and Twice Daily and absolutely nothing else. I suppose he could perhaps receive some portion of the tax proceeds from homes built within the Town Madison footprint as well, but don't know that that's the case. Right now, there's simply not enough businesses for him to start recouping his money.

[RedMaple]

I check into CBRE periodically to see if there are any updates on Town Madison. I saw today what was to me a new Town Madison Master Plan. It varies slightly from a map from August 2020.

From here: https://www.cbre.us/properties/prope...view=isLetting

Link directly to the image: https://www.cbre.us/resources/fileas...c770315061.JPG

Notably it includes the following businesses, many of which have been reporter before, but some I haven't seen:

• Margaritaville
• The Hub
• J. Alexander's
• LandShark
• Courtyard by Marriott
• Residence Inn
• Palmer House apartments
• Super Chic
• Five Guys
• Indecipherable business adjacent to Five Guys
• Outback
• Slim Chickens
• I Love Sushi
• Indecipherable business adjacent to I Love Sushi
• Starbucks

Notably Panera bread is not shown, but it could be in one of the "Coming Soon" locations.