By DONNA THORNTON, Editor
The Boaz Zoning Board of Adjustments voted to approve a height variance for a proposed cold storage facility at 0 Henderson Road — a step that should clear the way for the industry.
“This is a huge win for Boaz,” Boaz City Councilman Matt Brannon said. “This is the largest industrial build from the ground up in Marshall County history. There’s never been one bigger from the ground from the startup.” Some developments in the county have grown to be bigger over time, he said.
“Eighty to 90 employees, an average of $23-$24 an hour — that’s huge,” he said. In the city’s recent election forum and throughout the municipal campaigns, Brannon said the overwhelming topic was jobs, industry. “This is it. This is literally the answer people wanted.”
He said the Boaz Industrial Development Board had done a good job over the years of turning down plants that were not “what we’d want in our backyards in Boaz,” passing on three or four projects.
“This one is good for us. It fits Boaz. It’s good jobs,” he said.
This request, Scott Yoste, attorney for the IDB explained, Envision Cold Storage plans a $67 million investment in the facility, which would create 82 jobs and would create 300 construction jobs, and a $350,000 tax increase on the property.
Bennett Schneider shared details about the 209,000-square-foot facility. The detail that brought it before the Zoning Board of Adjustments is the height of the structure. The property is zoned M-1, with a maximum height of 45 feet. The variance was sought to allow a height of 70 feet 9 inches for portions of the structure.
With modern cold storage facilities, Schneider said, efficiency depends on how high product can be stacked. This facility is designed for product storage to a height of about 50 feet, which would require the largest portion of the building rooftop to be 56 feet 4 inches. Schneider explained the building would have “mechanical penthouses” to hold the HVAC equipment for the building, in small, enclosed rooms on top of the 56-foot roof. The penthouses will take the height over 70 feet.
Schneider said concerns from neighboring property owners were considered in updating plans. He said the plan pushes the penthouses as far south on the roof as possible, to have a lesser effect on sight lines from residences nearby.
On the west boundary of the property, he said, there will be a row of trees, and there would be two staggered rows of trees to the south all the way along the property line to shield neighboring property owners from seeing the structure. He said they plan to put in 14-feet tall evergreens — western cedars — that would grow 40- 60 feet tall. Behind the line of trees there would be a 10-foot wide, 6- to- 8-foot-tall earthen berm topped with an 8-foot-tall precast concrete wall.
The plan is to block as much of the view of the building and the trucks will come in and out to pick up stored products there. He said the tallest parts of the building may be visible to nearby residences.
Some 20 people attended the meeting, several with questions and concerns about not only the height of the building, but about noise, traffic, odor, chemicals and more.
Traffic, Schneider said, will be directed to the north, away from the Mount Vernon Road area. The building, too, has been pushed as far north as possible, and fans in the mechanical penthouses will be enclosed to control noise. The berm and trees will also help with noise.
Randy Goff, who will manage the facility, said Envision Cold Storage is excited to come to Boaz and bring the jobs. He said he’d monitored Facebook and seen some concerns, including those about ammonia. He said the Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires the company to go through preparation and training for catastrophic ammonia events.
He said in 35 years in the industry, he’d never seen a catastrophic event. If there is a loss of 100 pounds of ammonia, it must be reported to regulatory agencies. He said he’d only seen that a handful of times.
As residents from the area around the plant site asked questions about when there would be truck traffic to the facility, and when it would be in operation, Goff answered.
He said Envision can set work schedules and delivery or pick-up times to work around school traffic times, and to lessen the volume of traffic. Questioned about whether trucks will be left waiting, running to keep frozen products cold, outside the gates if deliveries are made when the facility is closed, Goff explained the facility will have an almost 700-foot driveway that leads to the gate. With that space, and controlled scheduling, there should be no trucks left waiting on roadways.
Goff said he could not guarantee there would never be an after-hours delivery, but he said Envision Cold Storage wants to be a good neighbor in the community. He said he wants the company’s name to be on signs at sports fields, for example.
The facility will store products that have been processed at other sites; no processing will be done there, he said.
Brannon said public safety will work with the company to keep traffic off city streets. Henderson Road is on the paving list already, and the city is already working with the Alabama Department of Transportation to improve intersections at Henderson Road.
Atlanta-based Envision Cold proposes a $67 million cold-storage facility on Henderson Road in Boaz. SPECIAL TO THE LEADER
