Fultondale City Councilman Darrell Hubbert, Mayor Jim Lowery, Councilman Tommy Loden and Darrell Bates of the city’s streets and parks board, stand together inside the new Target store on Tuesday evening. The store had a ribbon cutting ceremony in preparation for Wednesday’s opening.

By Adam Smith

The North Jefferson News



After years of waiting and months of building, Target was set to open today in Fultondale.

Hundreds of invited guests took part in a ribbon cutting ceremony Tuesday night to kick off the store’s opening.

The 125,000 square foot retail store also includes a Starbucks.

Store manager Dana Fuhrmann said she was excited to be part of Fultondale and was appreciative of how receptive the community had been toward the store.

“Everywhere we go with our uniforms on, people always ask us when we’re opening,” Fuhrmann said.

She said Target is very loyal to the communities they serve and said stores contribute 5 percent of all income to those communities.

“We just want everyone to come see what we’re all about,” she said.

Target represents the second anchor store of the Colonial Promenade shopping development. Best Buy opened on Friday.

At Fultondale’s City Council meeting Monday night, council members announced that Ashley Furniture would open on Friday. Books-A-Million will open next month and an 83,000 JC Penney store and Ross will open in August.

Councilman Greg Morris also announced that Colonial Properties will develop property next to the current shopping center. He said future development would be one-and-a-half times larger than the current site. “The best is yet to come,” he said at the meeting.

Mayor Jim Lowery said Tuesday that work on the property could start soon and would be developed quickly.

“I’d be hoping for a Belks or a Home Depot,” Lowery said. “It will be similar to what we have now with more lodging.”

Despite the opening of the shopping center and an expected influx of shoppers from other regions, Lowery said he’s not worried about Fultondale losing its small-town feel.

“I’m not really worried about losing our identity,” he said. “We are increasing our population, but I think we’re maintaining more of the youth than we were. More of them are staying with us now.”

Helen Dove, a former Fultondale resident now residing in Morris, said the face of the town has changed dramatically, but said progress is good when it comes to the senior community.

“As a senior citizen, it’s very good for us because we don’t like to travel,” she said. “[U.S.] 280 is horrible and we don’t drive out there.”

Dove said despite the town’s recent growth, she hoped the town would continue to work together to build a safe community for children.

“We’re going to have some problems, but as long as we support our police officers and stand behind our mayor and council, I think we’ll make it,” she said.”

Lowery said the council will begin to start work on strategic planning with what will be done with the windfall of tax revenue the city is expecting. He said public safety will be one of the areas the city will improve, including examining the benefits of a full-time fire department. However, he said the odds of funding the department with sales tax money may not happen.

“I don’t want to start a department with sales tax money,” he said. I don’t think it would be prudent on our part. We’d probably get more input from the community on what they want to do with it.”