English Bulldog Puppies for Sale in Huntsville, AL

Construction is expected to start in January on the new Montview Elementary and Magnet School in Huntsville.

Bridgewood Engineering engineer Russ Roberts said the new two-story, 10,000-square-foot facility will be open to students in August 2027, with completion of the three-phase project the following December. The school will be west of North Memorial Parkway and east of Callahan Drive, with entrances along Greenhill Drive.

The school’s construction is part of Huntsville City Schools’ 10-year, $600 million capital plan. The Planning Commission approved the project on Tuesday.

The school will be Huntsville’s third magnet school for elementary school students, joining the Academy for Academics and Arts and the Academy for Science and Foreign Language. Details on the Montview magnet program have not been announced. Huntsville City Schools offers two programs for elementary school magnet programs - STEM Pathway and Arts Pathway.

The brick and metal building will include 36 classrooms, including six flex classrooms. It will also have a gymnasium, storm shelter and a new track and recreational field. There will also be an outdoor classroom in an area of mature trees on the northern part of the nearly 20-acre campus. Roberts said as many of the trees as possible will be saved during construction.

There will also be four new playgrounds, including one for children with special needs.

The new school will be south of the existing school, which was built around 1960, Roberts said. The existing school will be demolished.

The existing school will continue to be open during the first part of construction. The existing parking lot will be demolished. A temporary lot will be put in while construction is ongoing.

The existing playgrounds on the south side of the current building will relocated and fenced in during construction. The current track will continue to be used as long as possible.

Perimeter fencing will be placed around the site for the new building at the beginning of construction.

McMillan Pazdan Smith Architecture designed the new school.

Other Planning Commission action

The Food Bank of North Alabama will be distributing food boxes to families of furloughed federal workers Wednesday at Joe Davis Stadium in Huntsville.

The distribution will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“We’re bringing enough to serve about 300 families,” Food Bank Development Director Bobby Bozeman said. “If we run out of boxes that we take to that mobile pantry, we will be doing more. A lot of our partners that source food from us will be doing more, as well.”

The boxes will consist mostly of pantry staples: rice, beans, pasta, pasta sauce and chicken. The boxes are going to be about 30 pounds, which may provide about 25 meals per family, according to Feeding America metrics.

Bozeman said the food bank is planning on doing at least one mobile pantry a week while the government is shut down.

“People can go to our website and use our Food Finder tool and that lists all of our different partner agencies,” Bozeman said.

Bozeman said the food bank is also making plans for mobile pantries for residents losing SNAP benefits.

“We’ve made some food purchases to help us get through this gap,” he said. “We’re scaling up.”

Bozeman said the food bank also has a pantry open every Friday at 2000B Vernon Avenue near downtown Huntsville from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“People are always welcome to go there,” he said.

The pantry has fresh fruit, vegetables and other pantry items. Unlike with mobile pantries, Bozeman said residents would be able to pick the food items they want.

“It’s a slower process than the drive thru pantry, but it is one that will meet the individual needs of the families we serve,” Bozeman said.

He said the organization works with about 100 grocery stores, the USDA and other programs to source food.

“This is already the time of year where we are gearing up for the holidays,” Bozeman said. “Pretty much every grocery store in our area participates in our food rescue program. We’ve got USDA food, which is the second biggest source of our food supply. We’ll have that until the end of the calendar year. The USDA made all of their food purchases for the calendar year before the shutdown.”

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A zoning change for a development where thousands of homes are planned near the Interstate 65-565 interchange and plans for the renovation of historic Goldsmith-Schiffman Field will come before the Huntsville Planning Commission on Tuesday.

The meeting is at 5 p.m. in the City Council Chambers at City Hall.

The zoning change is for an almost 400-acre site south of Alabama 20 and east of I-65 just across the interstate from the Decatur city limits. The site is currently called Westmoore Landing.

The property is currently zoned Residence 2B and Highway C4-Business districts. The zoning change to a Planned Development could pave the way for a Village of Providence-type development.

Huntsville Manager of Planning and Zoning Services Thomas Nunez said at previous City Council and Planning Commission meetings that developers planned to build between 2,200 and 3,000 homes on the more than 395-acre site. Retail development is also planned.

Nunez said developers are planning a mixture of housing types, including single-family homes, townhomes, duplexes, and multifamily units. He said many of the single-family homes would be cottage-style and manor-style.

Some residents and environmental advocates have raised concerns that there may be Native American artifacts on the site, saying that the property was home to Chickasaw Indian plum trees and was a former village and orchard site.

Nunez said there were state regulations in place and guidance from the city’s own sustainability committee that would protect sites of historical significance on the property, as well as species native to the area. He said site assessments would be done on the property.

All zoning changes must also be approved by the City Council.

Goldsmith-Schiffman Park

The Planning Commission will vote on the character, location and extent of Goldsmith-Schiffman Park, which is the renovation of former Goldsmith-Schiffman Field where city high school football teams once played.

The city sought public input earlier this year about how the deteriorating field at 320 Beirne Ave., near Five Points, could be reimagined. City Administrator John Hamilton said at a town hall meeting the city expects to spend between $8 million and $10 million from its 1990 capital improvement plan on refurbishing the stadium. He said parts of the stadium’s iconic stone wall are crumbling and unsafe. He said parts of the stadium are no longer compliant with federal regulations since it is in a flood plain.

Hamilton said that plans for the field call for two new flag football fields, which is currently the primary use at the stadium. The fields will be 30 yards by 70 yards. A playground with a rubberized surface, a pavilion with restroom facilities and two pickleball courts are among other amenities. Hamilton said public input could affect the plans.

Parts of the stone wall that surround the stadium will be removed as part of the refurbishment. The city plans to preserve the stone wall on the western side as well as on all four corners of the stadium. The wall will be replaced by a chain link fence that will promote safety at the park.

The city is aiming for construction next year and expected buildout to take 15 months.

Foresite Group, LLC, is designing the renovation.

Other agenda items

The Huntsville City Council approved an almost $1.5 million contract with Grayson Carter & Son Contracting to complete the third phase of the Tennessee River Greenway from Hobbs Road to Green Cove Road.

The 1.5-mile project will connect Elgies Greenway to Ditto Landing, where Madison County is constructing a $13 million event center with city assistance.

“This would complete a missing final link of the Tennessee River Greenway that we’ve been working on for several years,” City Director of Urban and Economic Development Shane Davis told the City Council on Thursday. “Once completed, it actually provides a 15-mile loop on the west end and east sides of South Memorial Parkway.”

Davis said people using the greenway would start near the Hays Farm and Haysland area and go to the river, going under U.S. 231 into Ditto Landing, up Ditto Marina Parkway and up Aldridge Creek all the way to the Jones Valley area.

“There is a lot of interest in this,” newly installed Council President Jennie Robinson said. “When the planning department did their planning presentation a couple of weeks ago, this was one of the items people were really focused on when they were looking at the big greenway map. It is such a crucial piece to complete this, and everyone will be very excited, the biking community in particular.”

Davis said the city’s planning and engineering departments have fielded several calls from residents “about this missing link of greenway,” which also includes the second phase of the greenway.

“They’ve asked ‘when can we get this connected so that we can arrive at various destinations’ throughout that trail,” he said.

Grayson Carter & Son Contracting, which is based in Athens, is involved with several city street projects.

Council approves land donation

The City Council also approved donating .265 acres of land near the city’s Trailhead Greenway to the Land Trust of North Alabama.

“This helps facilitate the Land Trust’s new Discovery Center that it has been planning for years, so they can move forward with construction,” Davis said. “That facility will be built just off Highway (U.S.) 72 East in the back of the Trailhead community. It is very close to most of the Land Trust’s natural trails.”

The land is currently a 17-space public parking area that accesses the Land Trust trails.

“During the construction, they will replace our parking and give us back parking,” Davis said. “Right now, our parking is in the wrong location for them to be able to move forward.”

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When Sandra Kohler lived in Atlanta, she’d often go see movies at local independent theaters like the Plaza and the Tara. After moving to Huntsville around 13 years ago, she was surprised there wasn’t something like that here.

About a year ago, Kohler, a fan of indie films like “Tangerine” and “Anora” by director Sean Baker, started thinking more seriously about opening an indie cinema in Huntsville herself.

“I thought, you know, Huntsville’s growing rapidly,” she says now, “and if I don’t do it, then somebody else is going to.” Kohler’s friend Scott Cole adds with a smile, “And they’re going to do it wrong.”

Kohler’s idea is now reality. She, Cole, Kohler’s husband Bubba Blackshear and Ellis Barnard, co-owner of video rental store Big Mix, are launching the Independent Cinema at Lowe Mill, Huntsville sprawling arts center at 2211 Seminole Drive.

As its name suggests, the Independent will screen indie, foreign and art house films, classics and cult favorites. They also plan on hosting midnight double features, film festivals and other cinephile-centric events.

On Oct. 31, Independent Cinema will open its doors to the public for the first time. They’ll host a “Halloween Marathon,” showing four horror movies starting at 10 p.m. There’s also a costume contest. Tickets are $15 online and $20 at the door.

Although those four movies are a secret, Cole, Independent’s programming director, hints titles from giallo master Dario Argento, who directed the original 1977 version of “Suspiria,” might be part of that.

Founder/CEO Kohler hopes to have the Independent open full-on sometime in November. “We’ll be open Wednesday through Saturday to show films when Lowe Mill’s open,” she says. “And then we might have like a Sunday matinee as well.

“For the newer releases, for the smaller independent newer releases, those will play for like a week’s run. But for more of the repertory stuff and the cult films, those will probably just be single screenings or one or two screenings for that week.”

The Independent will have a capacity of around 90 for screenings. The royal blue theater seats were donated by a defunct museum in Memphis, Kohler says. Blackshear and Cole are using shipping pallets to give the space terraced seating. Supporters have helped with start-up donations and volunteer labor, including painting.

For now, they’re using a temporary screen that’s about 12 feet wide. They’re still working out how big a permanent screen to install. Depending on the distributor, they’ll project films from a digital file source or DVD.

The Independent is housed in Lowe Mill’s Studio 150, an open and sizable space with high ceilings. Previously, it’s been home to the likes of Vertical House Records and Green Pea Press.

Blackshear, the Independent’s operations manager, says, “We looked at quite a number of places. I think ultimately it was the community and the arts here at the Mill that really drove us here. And we figured, what better place to start an independent cinema?”

Besides showing films, The Independent will also have a lounge area, complete with vintage furniture and artwork depicting classics like “A Clockwork Orange” and “Pulp Fiction.” In addition to popcorn, candy and sodas, the concessions will serve canned beer and wine and non-alcoholic cocktails.

“I really wanted to have an environment,” Kohler says, “where you can stay and hang out and talk about the movies that you watched to other people.”

This spring, Independent Cinema began hosting pop-up screenings at local businesses like Mad Malts Brewing, Gold Sprint Coffee and Liquor Express and Craft Beer.

Licensing films to screen is one of the main challenges of getting a new indie cinema going, Cole says: “We talk about movies we like and we’re like oh we want to show this. Then you go look it up, and some companies, you can’t get a hold of them. But on the other side of that there’s some that are just really easy to work with.”

Kohler adds, “We’ve been running on a pop-up basis, so a lot of the distributors don’t really want to talk to us. We don’t really have a cinema yet. So now we have a space, it’ll be a little easier to get some of those licenses that we couldn’t before.” By day, Kohler and Cole work Redstone Arsenal.

In the last dozen years or so, the quality and variety of Huntsville’s entertainment options has vastly increased. Orion Amphitheater and Mars Music Hall have brought in tours that passed the city over before, like Stevie Nicks, Jack White and Lindsey Buckingham. Comedy club Levity Live, formerly known as Stand Up Live, has hosted stars like Hannibal Buress, Josh Johnson and Bob Saget.

An indie cinema has been a missing piece though. Sure, AMC Valley Bend 18 in Jones Valley shows some indie films in limited runs. And if an indie film wins an Academy Award, Cinemark Bridge Street will show it. But the Independent finally gives the city a screen fully dedicated to bleeding edge, underground and subversive films.

Asked what she loves about these types of movies, Kohler says, “Independent films are more personal. They show you a different worldview or somebody else’s story that you may not have considered.”

Independent Cinema is also a key for addition for the local film scene. Other hubs thereof include Studio Huntsville, a film/TV soundstage, which hosts the 20th Annual Rocket City Short Film Festival on October 24. There’s also the long-running Southern Fried Film Festival and acting school Hollywood Huntsville, among others.

Huntsville’s produced notable actors, including Kim Dickens (“Gone Girl,” “Fear The Walking Dead”), the late Reg E. Cathey (“House of Cards”), and Felicia Day (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” the TV series).

The classic example is Tallulah Bankhead. Born in a second-floor apartment at 231 East Side Square, Bankhead featured in films like “Devil and the Deep,” with Gary Cooper and Cary Grant. Most recently, David Howard Thornton has risen to fame starring in hit horror franchise “Terrifier.”

Huntsville filmmakers haven’t broken through yet. But Kohler believes an indie cinema could help with that. “It brings more of the film industry here to Huntsville,” she says. “More people looking to make films. More people looking to get their films into a cinema and get their films in a film festival.”

Outside of tentpole blockbusters, it’s no secret today’s audience preferences skew heavily towards streaming movies instead of seeing movies in theaters.

Kohler thinks Huntsville is ripe for the antithesis of that. “People are very art-focused here in Huntsville,” she says, “and I think that that’s going to be a good draw for us here because film is an art form.

“And I still think that there are many incredible films being made, especially smaller independent films, that aren’t getting the viewership that they could be getting through the streaming services and the major multiplexes. So here in a smaller cinema, we can play those smaller things and get eyes on those smaller projects.”