Village Living
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March 2012 |
neighborly news & entertainment for Mountain Brook
Mountain Brook Gymnastics -pg 11
Coach Baynes-pg 6
Volume 2 | Issue 12 | March 2012
New Lane Parke plan presented to city By MADOLINE MARKHAM Evson Inc. has presented a new, scaled back plan for the 27-acre Lane Parke development to the city. The plan has reduced retail and commercial space by 22 percent from the most recent plan and added a plan for residential area on the north end of the property. “We have shown the plan to a number of parties that had concerns in the past, and they think it’s a much more appropriate plan for the site,” said John Evans, principal at Evson, which owns the property. “We want everyone to embrace this project because it is at the center of the community.” The city’s planning commission is set to hear a presentation on the plan on March 5 at 5:30 p.m. at Mountain Brook Junior High School. All parties involved in the planning, including Evson; Goodwyn, Mills & Cawood; Walker Parking; Skipper Consulting; Historical Concepts; and Daniel Corporation, will present. The developers encourage interested citizens to come to the presentation. This is the third plan for the space currently occupied by Mountain Brook Shopping Center and Park Lane apartments to come before the City Council. Evson
March Features City Council 100 for Adama Slade Blackwell Kari Kampakis Village Sports Best of Mountain Brook School House Dale Wisley Birmingham Fashion Week Business Spotlight Restaurant Showcase Calendar of Events Around the Villages
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A view of the proposed retail space at the intersection of Lane Park Road and Jemison Lane. Image courtesy of Evson, Inc.
announced in August 2011 that they were partnering with Daniel Corporation as they created a smaller plan. “Most of the issues raised with the previous plans have now been addressed,” said Steve Bradley, spokesperson for the developer. “We believe people are very familiar with the plans now and are ready to see them happen. It is our intent to move
forward as quickly as possible.” “We are optimistic we will get approval and start construction later this year,” Evans said. The north half of the property where the Park Lane apartments currently are, was not a part of the initial development; now 276 apartments will be built with the initial phase.
The new development will have the same number of units as the existing apartments, but the new, larger units will be housed in three to four story buildings with generous green space. None of these buildings will be visible from the other parts of the village. Unlike the previous plan, there will be no residential space over
See LANE PARKE | page 14
Sharing the fight of Lilly Ledbetter By ANNE WOOD It took 19 years on the job for Lilly Ledbetter to learn that the Goodyear plant in Gadsden had been paying her less than men doing the same job as she. It took 10 years of fighting for equal rights in the workforce before she saw any results. In 2009, President Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, inspired by Ledbetter’s historic discrimination case. A new book telling Ledbetter’s story, Grace and Grit: My Fight for Equal Pay and Fairness at Goodyear and Beyond, was not just years in the making for Ledbetter though. Mountain Brook resident Lanier Scott Isom had been writing throughout her career before she partnered with Ledbetter to share this story with the world. Grace and Grit is Isom’s first book. “Writing the memoir of an Alabama woman seeking social justice was a dream project for me because it involved many elements close to my heart,” Isom said. “Lilly’s memoir also involved using the eye of a reporter and the heart of a novelist.” Random House published the book with a Feb. 28 release date. It is now available at Barnes and Noble, Books-aMillion, Amazon and other major retailers
See LILLY | page 22
Lanier Isom worked on her first book, Grace and Grit: My Fight for Equal Pay Fairness at Goodyear and Beyond, from the Crestline farmhouse where she lives with her family. Photo by Madoline Markham.