GOOD HOPE — Plans are coming together at Good Hope for a new multipurpose storm shelter and community center, set to be constructed on a sliver on unused municipal property situated between County Road 437 (Alabama Highway 69), Beech Grove Road and Daystar Drive.

At its regular meeting Feb. 10, the Good Hope City Council adopted a resolution in support of a design for the project drafted by Jackson, Mississippi-based Waggoner Engineering, ahead of a Feb. 17 city planning commission meeting at which the finished plan will be presented. Mayor Jerry Bartlett noted that the firm’s design is currently “90 percent” completed, and that the council’s resolution comes with the stipulation that the plan will be fully finished in time for the upcoming planning commission meeting.

The triangle-shaped site that the mixed-use facility will occupy is bordered by a web of roadways whose traffic flow must be reconfigured once the project is finished, said Bartlett. The city already has barricaded the Highway 69 turnoff onto Beech Grove Road in anticipation of a construction start, in the process eliminating a traffic snarl, during busy times, that conflicts with the highway’s nearby intersection with Good Hope School Road.

This month’s public planning commission meeting will be Feb. 17 at 6 p.m. in the council meeting room at Good Hope City Hall. Representatives from Waggoner Engineering will be on hand at the meeting to explain the project’s features.

In other business at its Feb. 10 regular meeting, the council:

— Approved a $22,671.25 change order to account for the installation of an additional equipment upgrade as part of ongoing improvement work at the city’s Waste Water Treatment Plant.

— Adopted a resolution authorizing the use of electronic voting machines for the city’s upcoming election of municipal officer in August. Separately, the council also adopted an ordinance to give notice of the election.

— Approved the minutes of the council’s Jan. 27 regular meeting.

Benjamin Bullard may be reached by email at ben.bullard@cullmantimes.com or by phone at 256-734-2131 ext. 234.