Downtown Hanceville is seen February 26.

HANCEVILLE — A handful of Hanceville officials, business owners and interested citizens made their first acquaintance with the man who might one day represent them in the Alabama Senate Monday, at an informal meeting that highlighted development concerns in southern and eastern Cullman County.

Cullman City Council president Garlan Gudger, who’s challenging incumbent Sen. Paul Bussman in this June’s Republican primary, listened and asked questions about Hanceville’s efforts to grow its local economy.

Gudger said he recognizes the concerns and challenges that face county residents beyond the City of Cullman, where he’s been a part of a leadership structure that’s ushered in wave after wave of economic growth for the county’s most populated municipality.

“Really, everything good that happens in the City of Cullman is directly related to something good that already is happening in Cullman County,” he said.

Hanceville Mayor Kenneth Nail and other local leaders zeroed in on one long-term project in particular during their time with Gudger: a new, high-volume road connecting downtown Hanceville with Interstate 65 at Dodge City that, if built, would slash the distance between the city and the interstate by half.

The road would supplant the curving, 9-mile stretch of Beech Grove Road that presently connects Commercial Street in downtown Hanceville with the Dodge City area. In its place, leaders hope, would be a 4.5-mile straight shot that extends Commercial Street beyond the city limits in a direct path to I-65.

No feasibility study ever has been done on such an ambitious project, but Tim Burney, a Chattanooga architect — and Hanceville graduate — who makes the monthly trip down from Tennessee to take part in the business community gathering, says it’s one of several regional goals whose time has come.

“Already, there’s basically a corridor that starts down in the Jasper area, and we can sort of see this as a continuation of that corridor. It would address needs that many communities — not just the City of Hanceville — have had for a long time, both in terms of economic opportunity and, importantly, safety. Beech Grove Road is a circuitous, curving road that really isn’t designed for high-volume traffic.