Dothan looks at sidewalk expansion around Southeast Health

During the Dothan City Commission’s Tuesday meeting, City Manager Kevin Cowper presented a request for the city to participate in the sidewalk expansion project down U.S. Highway 84 East at the Ross Clark Circle as part of a larger Southeast Health medical park project. The cost of the larger project is $339,950. The city would put in $72,833.

The project will come up for a vote at a future meeting.

Dothan Planning Director Todd McDonald said subdivision regulations require the hospital to create a five-foot sidewalk. McDonald said the plan would be to take a 10-foot multi-use path that stretches from the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine to the former Dothan Village site and extend the path back toward the hospital and down a portion of the Circle. Ultimately, the goal is connect the area to downtown for pedestrians.

“This is one of the links in the chain,” McDonald said.

Public Works Director Charles Metzger said the city is working with the Alabama Department of Transportation to take the sidewalks across the Ross Clark Circle.

The city hopes to secure grants in the future to further expand sidewalks around the hospital and medical park.

Cowper said the sidewalk expansion would also help fulfill the city’s long-term vision of connecting the medical district to downtown. Southeast Health, he said, has been a good partner in the sidewalk expansion project.

“I think they see the benefit of these sidewalks and, particularly, the multi-use path and connecting the medical district ultimately to downtown and implementing that planning vision that you all adopted some years ago,” Cowper said. “So, this is an exciting project. It’s kind of hard to visualize as we piece this together almost like a jigsaw puzzle. But the strategy is in place; the vision is in place. We’ll go about this one parcel and one project at a time.”

In other business:

– Commissioners agreed to provide $200,000 to the Industrial Development Board of the City of Dothan upon request in four annual payments of $50,000, starting Sept. 30, 2021, and ending Sept. 30, 2024. The payments will meet obligations with the Alabama Municipal Electric Authority in support of a company that may locate in a facility on Nypro Lane. Details on the economic development project are not finalized and have not been released.

– The commission voted to update the city’s noise ordinance. While one change pertains to hours for outdoor music in the city’s downtown overlay district, other changes focus on construction noises adjacent to residential neighborhoods and restrict the hours of construction activity as well as loading and unloading trucks near residential areas.

– City commissioners also approved a resolution for the city to apply for and accept a grant from the Alabama Forestry Commission in the amount of $80,178 for an urban tree canopy assessment as well as revising the city’s tree ordinance, training staff and installing trees at visible locations within the Ross Clark Circle. The project is intended to address damage done to the city’s tree canopy during Hurricane Michael and will require a 20% match by the city, or $26,726.