Source: Birmingham Business Journal, written by Samuel Stettheimer – Commercial Real Estate Reporter
A Birmingham-based multifamily developer has plans for a 330-unit development in Irondale.
StoneRiver Company has plans to develop The Hub at Grants Mill, a luxury rental community with three- and four-story garden-style apartments, townhomes, and cottages. The total rentable area of the development would be roughly 340,000 square feet, according to Daniel Fuchs, executive vice president of development at StoneRiver.
Williams Blackstock Architects is the architect for the project. A general contractor is not yet fully under contract, and StoneRiver’s in-house property management division will manage the property. Fuchs expects a roughly 24-month construction timeframe after breaking ground. StoneRiver did not disclose the cost of the project.
Amenity programming is not yet finalized, but it could include nature-centric amenities based around the Cahaba River, Fuchs said.
The Hub at Grants Mill LLC acquired the 51-acre property for roughly $1.96 million in 2023, public records show. The undeveloped land sits opposite the Church of the Highlands Grants Mill Campus, near the Irondale Auto Mall. The rear of the property is adjacent to the Pine Tree Country Club and the Cahaba River.
“We’re a local group, and we want to be good stewards of the land and the environment, and we are ensuring we’re taking appropriate measures to do so,” Fuchs said. “We’ve actually been in proactive contact with a number of advocacy groups, the Cahaba River Society, Freshwater Land Trust, and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. We’ve been quite proactive to ensure appropriate development with minimal impact to the surrounding area.”
The land is zoned as an R-4 multiple-family zone. The Hub at Grants Mill LLC has applied for a special use regulations permit to allow floor areas below the minimum of 800 square feet per unit. Standard R-4 zoning allows nine dwelling units per acre.
“We didn’t want to maximize the density that we could put on the site,” Fuchs said. “We very well could do a lot more, but we wanted to keep it an appropriately sized development and allow for our residents to enjoy the natural surroundings.”
StoneRiver made the inaugural investment of its Fund III in March, with the acquisition of a 288-unit apartment complex in Burlington, North Carolina.
