Entries Tagged 'Gulf Shores' ↓

Two Baldwin County beach communities have turned down federal awards because they required local governments to put up city money or add costs for new city programs.

City officials in Gulf Shores scuttled plans last month for a new fire station and a community storm shelter despite securing a $2.8 million pledge from the federal government.

And Orange Beach officials decided last week to give the state $750,000 in federal money the city received to buy waterfront property.

The two communities have aggressively pursued the grants in recent years, winning money used to buy sea oats, senior citizen shuttles - even an island.

2 Baldwin County cities turn down federal money

Tourism is the backbone of South Baldwin County’s economy and Labor Day visitors did their part to help break the recession.

The final figures won’t be in for a couple more weeks but all indications are the Labor Day weekend saved the summer for many struggling businesses on Pleasure Island.

Labor Day Beach Economy

Flushing the bad economy away

When Meyer Real Estate opens its Gulf Shores and Orange Beach offices this morning, the firm will check in more vacationers arriving for the holiday weekend than it has on any other day this summer, said Sarah Kuzma, a company spokeswoman.

In July, traditionally the local tourism trade’s most lucrative month, Orange Beach collected more sales and lodgings taxes than it has in any month in the city’s 25-year history. The $1.4 million in lodgings tax collected was a 5.2 percent increase over July 2008 and the $1.01 million in sales tax taken in was up 13.5 percent from last July, the Convention and Visitors Bureau reported Thursday.

Also in July, the 14,317 condo units from Perdido Key to Fort Morgan reported an occupancy rate of 79.5 percent, a 3.2 percent increase over the same month last year and the highest rate since at least 2004, Convention and Visitors Bureau statistics show. That, Malone said, is “staggering” considering there are 713 new condo units that weren’t on the market last July.

Beach reports tourism records

A nonprofit that earlier this summer struck a deal to build and operate a 6,700-square-foot art education center on city property in Gulf Shores has backed out of that deal and instead proposed putting its facility in the next city over.

Beach CITE Studios Inc. struck a 99-year, $1-a-year lease agreement with the Gulf Shores City Council in February. Its leadership said in June that it expected to open its art center at the corner of West 19th Avenue and West Second Street early next year but that deal fell apart.

As the nonprofit sought approval for its building designs this summer, Gulf Shores officials sought to develop the public space with green building techniques, but Beach CITE Studios representatives said adding things like landscaped stormwater retention basins and a permeable parking lot would price the project out of their b

Nonprofit eyes Orange Beach for arts facility

Anticipation continues to build among the racing community as the area’s premier triathlon - and its new sister event of a shortened triathlon - grows closer each day. Registration recently opened for the Brett-Robinson Alabama Coastal Triathlon and the new Coastal “Tri-It-On” Triathlon, both of which are set for Saturday, September 19, 2009 in the Gulf Shores and Orange Beach area.

Pleasure Island Prepares to Welcome Expanded Triathlon Weekend

On pace for an end-of-year $700,000 deficit and facing a certain decline in income with the end of the tourism season, Mayor Robert Craft on Monday called for city department heads to look for ways to cut spending and delay expensive projects.

When outlining their 2009 spending plan late last year, city officials projected that revenues would fall from 2008 collections by about $2.6 million to $23.5 million. Even with those lowered expectations and decreased spending — including layoffs — revenue of $23.5 million would put Gulf Shores in a $700,000 deficit.

Councilman Jason Dyken, who chairs the council’s Finance Committee, said “we’re within one-tenth of 1 percent in terms of our projections,” which means Gulf Shores is on target for the forecast deficit. Said Dyken: “We have a problem to overcome.”

Facing shortfall, Gulf Shores mayor urges thrift

If leaders were more thrifty during good economic times, the bad times wouldn’t be so bad.

Cities around Baldwin County have a new look — on the Web, that is.

Foley, Fairhope and Gulf Shores have focused on improving the aesthetics and organization of their cities’ Web sites over the summer months to improve usability and clarity of information.

WEB SITES

GULF SHORES: www.cityofgulfshores.org

FOLEY: www.cityoffoley.org

FAIRHOPE: www.cofairhope.com

Cities give Web sites a facelift

City Hall has filled one of two new executive posi tions the City Council created earlier this summer, hiring Cynthia King last week as director of finance and administration.

King is currently the municipal finance director in College Park, which hosts the Georgia International Convention Center and a portion of the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

City Administrator Steve Gar man said that King, who is scheduled to start work in Gulf Shores on Sept. 14, will earn $80,000 annually

Gulf Shores hires finance director

The nationally recognized Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail offers visitors glimpses of local wildlife in their natural habitats and now includes a form of new-age treasure hunting — geocaching.

Geocaching draws more attention to state park

In 2004, Hurricane Ivan wiped out the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo, forcing the evacuation of every animal and bird in the facility. Zoo keepers and volunteers moved the animals out, one by one, and transported them to individual safe houses further inland. The entire hurricane evacuation was a nightmare. But things will be different now if a storm threatens Pleasure Island.

“If we have a hurricane, all we have to do is lock them down in the Category 5 night-houses and spend the night at the zoo,” says zoo director Patti Hall.

Local Zoo Hurricane Ready

Mayor Robert Craft said Monday that the city is scrapping plans to build an estimated $4.5 million fire station and a multimillion dollar community storm shelter near Jack Edwards Airport.

Instead, the mayor said, City Hall is negotiating with Baldwin EMC to buy its shuttered building a few blocks north of City Hall on West First Street in hopes of turning it into a new primary fire station.

Plans for firehouse near Gulf Shores airport scuttled

When Tommy Lunceford Jr. goes on trial next month on arson charges, lawyers for the Gulf Shores businessman will try to shift the focus to his alleged victim, recent filings in Mobile’s federal court suggest.

The November 2007 fire ripped through Lunceford’s commercial building off of Ala. 59, gutting a restaurant located there.

Prosecutors maintain that the former Auburn University punter from the 1960s was motivated, in part, by bad blood between himself and the couple who managed the restaurant

Arson defense may shift the focus

Prosecutors said Friday that they want to upgrade charges to capital murder for two more of the eight suspects in the deaths of a Panhandle couple known for adopting many children with special needs, and investigators questioned another man about the slayings and said there could be more arrests.

Police questioned Gulf Shores car dealer and businessman Henry Cabell Tice, 61, after he turned himself in at the Escambia County, Fla. Sheriff’s Office on Thursday night, spokesman Ted Roy said.

Tice was arrested on a warrant for writing $17,341 in bad checks to Worldco Financial Services Inc., an auto financing company owned by Byrd and Melanie Billings, who were killed last month.

Gulf Shores businessman questioned in Florida couple’s deaths

state appeals court has rejected a challenge to Gulf Shores’ ban on smoking in enclosed public places.

Jennifer Leigh Gann had been convicted of violating the ban by smoking in a bar where she worked in the beach town. She was fined $50.

Gann argued that the law was not intended to protect public health, but to allow the City of Gulf Shores to bully citizens. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals turned back her argument in an unanimous decision Friday. The court also said the ban does not violate Alabama’s constitution.

Alabama court rejects challenge to smoking ban

City officials plan to ask the state Transportation Department for $1.8 million to help control stormwater runoff along East Second Street.

During a City Council work session earlier this week Public Works Director Mark Acreman said his department spent about $35,000 in development impact fees to design a drainage system that will route runoff from about 80 acres south of East 20th Street away from a flood-prone part of town and into the Intracoastal Waterway.

Gulf Shores eyes $1.8 million to fix neighborhood flooding