By Adam Smith

The North Jefferson News



Gardendale residents’ dreams of having a movie theater and retail shopping center on the Caufield Square site have been dashed — for now, at least.

In statements received via e-mail from developer Bob Jones of Palladium Properties, LLC, Jones said the property is for sale. The asking price is $9 million.

Jones said the decision to sell the property amounted to dollars. “The project was no longer going to provide a return on [the] investment that our partners desired,” he said. “The numbers [for] the type of development we proposed to build just would not work. I would expect to see a more traditional retail-based product” on the property.

Jones said there has been interest in the property from several well established retail developers.

Gardendale resident Paula Holladay expressed disappointment over the decision to sell the property.

Holladay, a member of Christway Church of God, said her church was completely built and occupied in less time than it took to flatten the Caufield Square site.

“There still seems to be no progress being made,” Holladay said. “Fultondale is getting all the new businesses and the idea of Caufield Square is dormant and non-existent. It’s the prettiest, flattest red piece of land in Gardendale. Maybe it can be rented out for dirt bike riding.”

Gardendale Mayor Kenny Clemons said he doesn’t feel pressured to build a large-scale shopping center to compete with Fultondale.

“Our sales tax has not gone down because of Fultondale at all,” Clemons said. “Where we have a Wal-Mart, they have a Target. They’re not the same kind of market. People will come to this region. It’s the energy.”

Jones and his group closed on the $30 million, 22-acre property in February 2005. The development was thought by some to be Gardendale’s future crown jewel, competing with Fultondale’s Colonial Promenade shopping center which opened prior to the holiday season.

In addition to a movie theater, the development was to feature a bowling alley, in addition to retail and residential developments.

Gardendale Mayor Kenny Clemons said Caufield Square developers had told him there was ambivalence on the part of banks to fund movie theaters because of the ability that consumers have to watch movies on the Internet or order them through a cable provider.

However, Jones disagreed with Clemons’ assessment, and said the movie exhibition industry remains strong and profitable. He said new theaters are under construction in Huntsville and Greenville.

Additionally, repeated setbacks in the Mt. Olive Road widening project, including the purchase of rights-of-way and other infrastructure work, kept work on the site pushed back.

An optimistic Jones said in an article in a May issue of The North Jefferson News said residents could expect the project to be open by late fall of 2007.

However, paving work has still not begun on the widening project. Crews are continuing to move utility lines which must be completed before road work can begin.

In Clemons’ state of the city address on Thursday, he made no mention of the Caufield Square site. However, this week he said three of the southeast’s major developers had recently been in the city looking at the site. He expressed optimism that a decision could be made on the site in short order.

Infrastructure work has been completed at the site, which Clemons said would be attractive to anyone interested in the property.

He said he couldn’t provide any details on who the interested parties may be, but said a retail shopping center is still possible on the site. One developer, Clemons said, considering advancing the property down to Fieldstown Road and relocating Taco Bell and Shoney’s elsewhere. However, he said that is just a possibility.

The city will also have the opportunity to market the site when the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) meets in Birmingham on Feb. 13-14.

“We’ll be making some big announcements within the coming months,” Clemons said.