Samford University’s planned 27-acre Creekside development adjacent to Homewood High School has raised concerns in Homewood about the impact of a 10-story hotel and shopping center development alongside Shades Creek that will impact the habitat of the spotted salamander.

“There’s a couple of compelling issues,” said Homewood City Council member Jennifer Andress, who expressed opposition to some elements of the plan. “We’ve got the environmental issues on the east side proposal and the neighborhood impact on the west side proposal.”

The planned development is a joint venture between Samford University, Landmark Development and Johnson Controls.

Robert Dunn, CEO of Landmark Development, presented the Creekside plan at the March 4 Homewood Planning Commission meeting, after a public presentation on March 3 at the Homewood Board of Education office.

“This really is a continuation of Samford’s master plan and the realization of the master plan,” Dunn said. Samford adopted its “Samford Horizons: A Blueprint for Tomorrow” master plan in 2023, but the university’s public web page on its Samford Horizons master plan does not appear to mention the Creekside development.

Dunn directed inquiries about the plan to a new web site, Creeksidehomewood.com.

“The plan has evolved as really all master plans evolve,” Dunn said. “The Creekside development is really the next stage of development that Samford has contemplated for some time.”

Landmark has been working on the plan with Samford “going back a couple years,” Dunn said.

Plans call for a pedestrian bridge across Lakeshore Parkway, linking Samford’s campus on the north side of Lakeshore to land it owns on the south side of Lakeshore. “To us, that’s one of the fundamental infrastructure elements that we want to see come together as part of this plan,” Dunn said.

The plan also calls for a turn lane, lane improvements on Lakeshore and signal timing adjustments to the traffic light at Samford’s campus entrance.

The plan requests rezoning to mixed use for the west section and institutional use for the east.

“We felt the best way to move forward on this is through a rezoning process and use the rezoning process for a robust community engagement,” Dunn said.

The plan calls for some student housing to be built for law students and college juniors and seniors south of Lakeshore.

The development would feature a pavilion with restaurants. “A draw to students, Samford, but also the high school,” Dunn said.

“This is community first,” Dunn said. “This is not College Town USA.”

Traffic concerns

Developers did a traffic impact analysis, Dunn said.

“Everyone has a concern of traffic,” he said. “We are certainly not interested in creating a development that struggles with traffic.”

There will be retail stores that draw some cars, and more than 300 parking spaces, but Samford students who now drive off campus may be able to walk on campus to the retail, offsetting traffic, he said.

“While we will generate new traffic, there are a number of mitigating factors,” Dunn said.

Reaction: Noise, light, salamanders

Dunn said the first public forum on Creekside was March 3.

After Dunn’s March 4 presentation to Homewood City Council, more than a dozen speakers voiced concerns over noise, light, traffic, impact on Homewood High School, and about the habitat of the salamanders.

“I am just shocked at how little reference has been made to the impact on Homewood High School,” said Laura Williams, a Homewood resident.

Jeff Baker, a Homewood resident who lives next to the Samford campus, said the planned Creekside development would create a noise and light nuisance.

Michelle Blackwood of Friends of Shades Creek said there are 8 to 9 species of salamanders that depend on the creek and a vernal pool that dries up in summer, where salamanders migrate and lay eggs.

She said their group first found out about the Creekside development plan on the first weekend of March.

If the development goes in it will likely destroy salamander habitat, she said. “They probably won’t exist,” she said. “I’m going to speak for the salamanders.”

Dunn said planners are looking for ways to “enhance, not degrade” the watershed.

“I’m not going to stand before you tonight and say we have the absolute solution,” Dunn said.

But developers may be able to improve the salamander migration situation, he said.

The developers are open to suggestions and want to work with the community, he said.

“It will be built over time,” Dunn said. “It will be built over phases.”

City planning commissioners delayed action on the plan.

Andress said the plan will come up next at Homewood’s Planning and Development Committee meeting on June 2.