Nancy Peabody says talk of the demise of the downtown Birmingham restaurant she co-owns is overblown at this point.
But still, when there’s smoke, there is often a fire.
“We are not to that point where we are panicking or selling dishes right now,” Peabody said early Tuesday afternoon. “They’ve got a lot of stuff going on in Birmingham and we are business as usual right now.”
A Friday report in Downtown says the iconic Peabody’s Restaurant at 34965 Woodward Ave. may have been sold to Alden Development Group, which could build a five-story mixed-use building on the site.
“We are a long way from that point,” she said.
Maybe so. Or maybe not that far away.
The Birmingham City Commission on Monday approved scheduling an April 25 public hearing on a brownfield site cleanup plan of about $1.33 million for the property.
The plan says the property is expected to be purchased in “early 2016” and the development’s taxable value is estimated at $7.5 million, or 25 percent of the proposed development cost (which would make it $30 million).
According to a memo prepared for the city commission, the plan “outlines numerous environmental concerns on the site, including historical operations performed at the site, contamination of the adjacent sites, and contamination of the subject site, including the presence of petroleum hydrocarbon constituents and heavy metals in the soil, and barium in the groundwater.”
City documents say there would be at least two floors of residential space in the planned new building, along with two floors of underground parking with 88 spaces.
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