Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox said the University of Alabama’s 14th National Championship has both emotional and financial benefits for the city.
“I think emotionally, it’s been good for our city to experience joy in the season, and clearly winning a football game doesn’t replace a loved one that’s lost or a home that was destroyed, but clearly it does provide some relief from the day-to-day trauma of what we experienced and that in and of itself is a positive,” Maddox said.
Economically speaking, Maddox said the city has a profit to be gained from the Tide’s victory, as well.
“Whether it’s Tuscaloosa’s name being consistently mentioned across the nation or people coming into the town excited about the team’s success who are going to spend the night, eat dinner and purchase T-shirts, that all has a trickle down effect that is very positive,” he said. “And that will continue to linger to A-Day and into next year.”
Maddox also spoke about the city’s $46,000 engineering contract that was approved by the City Council in early January that will assist the removal of debris from Forest Lake, although no timetable has been set in stone at this point.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service also met with city officials about funding up to 75 percent of the estimated $300,000 cleanup cost of Forest Lake.
“We got a grant through the National Conservation Resource Service, so that will go towards the cleanup of Forest Lake, which has been very difficult because it’s a private lake and since you’re dealing with that issue, it can complicate matters,” he said. “But now, hopefully within the next few months, that lake can begin the cleanup process. I imagine the engineering will be complete sometime in the next month and then will go to bid sometime in March or April.”
Looking ahead, Maddox said he thinks Tuscaloosa residents and students will see more construction start up over the course of the next month.
In fact, he said, last week the city added fourteen new commercial starts, which puts Tuscaloosa up to 251 commercial starts and 2,177 residential starts since April 27.
“I think you’re going to see more development happen as insurance begins to settle and work itself out,” Maddox said. “I think then you’re really going to see construction begin in earnest sometime around mid to late summer, but I think in the next few months you’ll be seeing more and more begin to pop up.
“The insurance issue is probably going to be the most difficult – with the city right now, we’re still in dispute with our insurance company over our facilities so we can’t even begin building back till that’s settled.”
