Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey appeared in Gardendale this afternoon to announce that $489 million in federal funding has been secured to resume construction on the Northern Beltline this spring.

That funding will cover five years of construction and will open a four-lane, 10-mile segment of interstate highway called I-422 between U.S. 31 north of Gardendale and State Highway 75 north of Pinson.

“This is an exciting day for Jefferson County,” Ivey said. “The need for this project has grown.”

The proposed Northern Beltline would be a 52-mile, six-lane corridor from Interstate 59 in northeast Jefferson County to the I-459 interchange with I-59/20 near Bessemer.

Construction on the Birmingham Northern Beltline stopped in fall 2016 due to the lack of federal funding.

The project was funded solely by the Appalachian Development Highway System, but wasn’t funded in the fiscal year 2018 federal transportation bill.

DeJarvis Leonard, head of ALDOT’s East Central Region, said sections of the interstate will be opened as they are finished. He said work would resume where it left off between State Highways 75 and 79, a section that would probably be completed first because of the work that’s already been done, and work will also start from U.S. 31 working back east toward that section.

“We need to build what we need 25 years from now, not what we need now,” said U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer. With a completed I-422, Jefferson County will be on track to create a technology corridor that could rival any in the country, Palmer said. “The Alabama delegation is committed to making this happen,” he said.

“In the movie, ‘Field of Dreams,’ they said, ‘Build it, and they will come,’” Palmer said. “That applies to infrastructure.”

The new I-422 is intended to complete an interstate loop around Birmingham that began with Interstate 459, which runs about 33 miles from McCalla in western Jefferson County to Trussville in eastern Jefferson County.

“Birmingham is one of the very few cities of its size in the United States that lacks a complete, connected interstate route to serve its metropolitan area,” Ivey said. “For about the last 30 years or so, we have talked about the need for a project that changes that.”

I-459 construction began in the 1970s, was completed in 1985 and led to a development boom including the construction of the Riverchase Galleria in Hoover at the I-65 intersection in 1986 and The Summit shopping center at the U.S. 280 intersection with I-459 in 1997.

State and local officials said the completion of a Northern Beltline would open northern Jefferson County for a similar economic development boom.

“We need to continue to work together,” said Gardendale Mayor Stan Hogeland. “This doesn’t finish it, this gets it started.”

Homewood City Council member Jennifer Andress said the project will also increase mobility for law enforcement and emergency rescue efforts in the county. “We have disaster relief, we have law enforcement, that we need to have quick access to the people that they serve.”

Ivey said the new corridor would relieve traffic congestion by re-routing trucks around the city. “It will make traffic through this area much more convenient,” she said. “Once completed, it will divert an estimated 18,000 semi-trucks out of downtown Birmingham, reducing traffic congestion and improving safety.”