A group of Gardendale residents have filed a lawsuit against the city in order to keep Phillips Drive open.

A short section of the road was closed earlier this year while a Dollar General store was under construction at Fieldstown Road and the east end of Phillips Drive.

The Gardendale City Council hosted a public hearing in July to hear whether residents who live on the road wanted it to remain closed or to re-open. By a show of hands requested by Mayor Othell Phillips, a majority of people in attendance wanted the section of road to remain closed permanently.

Their reasons included safety concerns and decreasing traffic in their neighborhood from Dollar General. People on both sides of the argument agreed that the road is too narrow.

Gardendale City Attorney Ken Thompson said he will file a motion asking for the case to be dismissed, because the road is now open. The store’s development company removed the barriers recently.

“We were going to keep the road closed to explore our options, then the lawsuit was filed and the road was opened by the development company,” said Mayor Phillips. “At that time we didn’t have any basis to keep the road closed.”

Wesley Phillips, attorney for the residents who want the road to remain open, was unavailable for comment for this article.