Irondale, Alabama to seek help on finding and keeping retail

Irondale city leaders are hiring experts to find out what kind of retail business can move there and succeed, after a series of setbacks have left the city without so much as a grocery store.

The city has been struggling for years with the loss of stores as large as Haverty's and Wal-Mart down to economically resilient stores such as Dollar General, which recently shut down in a half-empty Irondale Plaza on Crestwood Boulevard.

Now, the city of about 10,000 doesn't even have a food store.

So city leaders are hiring the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham to take a look and target the problems and the solutions.

The study will only take six or seven months, but the solution probably will require more than a decade and much hard work, said Steve Ostaseski, a planner on the study.

"It's not going to be as simple as putting in a sidewalk and waving a magic wand," Ostaseski said. "It's going to be a sea change in that area. That's not to say it can't happen."

The study will bring together planners and other experts to look at the retail shopping available in the area, along with what people are willing to spend, how far they are willing to travel and how easy it is to travel there, Ostaseski said.

It's unlikely the area will get a destination shopping center, with failing or foundering malls just over the city line on Crestwood Boulevard in Birmingham, he said.

But it may emerge that shoppers and residents don't have enough of some business, such as a car dealership, that would be willing to move there, he said.

"Maybe it's artists' colonies," Ostaseski said. "I don't know what it is."

The study also will try to tease out what exactly is repelling shoppers in the middle class city that can't seem to keep its stores. If it is traffic or lack of walking environments, Irondale can build or make changes, Ostaseski said.

Once the city has in hand a glossy package to show solid data indicating what people will spend and what they want to buy in Irondale, it will be easier to lure business, Ostaseski said.

The work will cost $64,090 with $12,818 paid by Irondale for a four-to-one matching grant.

E-mail: kbouma@bhamnews.com

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Study to help lure businesses