Ten miles southeast of downtown Birmingham, Alabama, EBSCO Development Company, a division of EBSCO Realty, is recreating a small-town America feel in Mt Laurel, a mixed-use development where homes come complete with front porches and rocking chairs.

"The plan was to take the best of Birmingham's older neighborhoods and bring it to Mt Laurel," says Elton B. Stephens Jr., vice president and general manager of EBSCO Realty and town founder of Mt Laurel. Based on the concept of traditional neighborhood development (TND), Mt Laurel will be a place where residents can walk through town to take care of errands like grocery shopping and picking up the dry cleaning, children can walk to the community's play field and families can walk to church.

In fact, much effort has gone into the planning of Mt Laurel to make it pedestrian friendly. The narrow streets are interconnected, meaning there are no dead ends. Extra-wide sidewalks allow two people to walk comfortably side-by-side. Front porches -- required on all homes in Mt Laurel -- encourage interaction amongst neighbors, and EBSCO provides further incentive by giving two maple rocking chairs to all homebuyers.

"We have hundreds of people coming to Mt Laurel every weekend," Stephens says. "They're excited when they think, 'My kids can walk to school. We can walk to church. We can walk to the town center to buy a loaf of bread.'"

Retailers are excited about Mt Laurel, too. Local retailers are interested in locating within Mt Laurel "because they recognize that it has great architecture and it has a sense of place," says Stephens.

"The area has good demographics," he continues. "Within a 3-mile radius, the average household income is $120,000 a year." While he expects the draw area will include this 3-mile radius, he says, "We have an active town, and when it is complete, I would expect people could come from 5 to 10 miles to spend the day. We continuously activate the town center with events. We've already had the Alabama Symphony play in the town center. In the summer, we have a farmer's market every Saturday."

Traditional neighborhoods with such active communities began fading out when Americans moved to the suburbs in the 1950s and '60s. "When people left the urban core and started moving to the suburbs, the zoning authorities started separating the real estate uses. You couldn't build a shopping center next to office or office next to residential. A church couldn't be next to a shopping center. None of the real estate uses could be next to each other," explains Stephens. "This caused dependency on the automobile. People stopped walking, and there was nowhere for kids to hang out."

Developing Mt Laurel

Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company designed the master plan for Mt Laurel. In the planning stages, Stephens says 15 architects and engineers, including Andres Duany, spent 12 hours a day for 2 weeks completing the master plan, including urban regulations and 15 housing types. "We had a full-time artist there creating renderings. We had two vans and we would ride around the older neighborhoods of Birmingham. We looked at street widths and setbacks on houses. We took photographs of old neighborhoods, the way the sidewalks and curbs were done. We looked at intersections," explains Stephens.

Planners and architects have paid close attention to detail. "Everything is done with a plan in mind to give you a pleasant aesthetic view down the street," says Stephens. Houses have rear lanes or alleys behind them. Mailboxes, garbage, power boxes and telephone boxes -- the unsightly necessities -- are located in these rear lanes. Garages are also situated so they open onto rear lanes or at least to the sides of houses rather than being in the front.

EBSCO has also taken pains to keep trees as part of the scenery at Mt Laurel. "I think we are one of the only traditional neighborhood developments or even conventional developments that saves trees," states Stephens. "We've gone to great lengths to do that and we've learned how to clear the footprint of a house on a lot and leave trees all the way around the house."

The master plan calls for 500 homes on 500 acres, but EBSCO is committed to preserving nature for residents to enjoy and plans to leave about 200 acres completely natural. EBSCO has also built a 65-foot vertical dam wall to create the 11-acre Spoonwood Lake. Few homes will be built around the lake, thereby ensuring that all of the community's residents will enjoy the lake.

"We've got about 35 houses built or under construction with 25 families living here," says Stephens. "We are starting one and a half to two spec homes per week. We keep about 16 spec homes under construction or completed all of the time. Our goal is to build 60 to 80 houses a year."

Housing at Mt Laurel is designed to fit the demographics of the area. Townhomes start at $219,000 and single family dwellings range from $220,000 to $500,000. Stephens says the houses have individual two-car carriage houses behind them consisting of a studio apartment above a garage. EBSCO is also developing a 1,000-square-foot cottage that will sell for about $175,000.

J. Scott Finn is serving as town architect while taking a leave of absence from his position as a professor of architecture at Auburn University. Finn developed Mt Laurel's architectural style, which is along the lines of the arts and crafts style.

As the first homes go up, EBSCO is also constructing the first retail/office building in the Town Center. The 33,000-square-foot Robinson Building will house retail on the first floor, including a restaurant that will seat 88 people, and office space will be located on the second floor. The Town Center will also have a 5,000-square-foot European-style market where people can buy fresh fish and meats as well as staples needed on a daily basis.

The town's hardware store is already leased, by someone building a house in the town. A pharmacist is planning to locate in Mt Laurel, and a town doctor will open a practice in 2003. Richard Joseph Salon, a hair salon and spa, is expanding and moving to Mt Laurel from its nearby location in Mountain Brook.

The town is also developing a live/work product. This is a 2,400-square-foot, two-story unit that sells for around $230,000. These units have a business downstairs and a one-bedroom apartment upstairs. "We've been amazed at the number of people who have wanted to buy a live/work," says Stephens. These attached units are built three to six at a time, and 24 are planned for the downtown area.

EBSCO has been active in developing and planning civic buildings as well. "The first piece of land that we donated was to the fire station," Stephens says. The fire station is now built and occupied with a full-service fire department. EBSCO will build a town hall, which will be used for meetings, movies, plays and seminars, behind the fire station.

Approximately 170 students are enrolled at a Montessori school in the town center. The school will build a permanent location near the town center in about 3 years. It will be the first GREEN building in the state of Alabama, meaning it will be solar, sustainable and made of recyclable materials. The 30,000-square-foot building will be developed under the guidelines of the federal GREEN building program.

The town will also have a Shelby County public school, housing kindergartners through fifth graders. The two-story school will be open in the fall of 2003. An Episcopal church and a Presbyterian church are also planned for the town.


©2002 France Publications, Inc. Duplication or reproduction of this article not permitted without authorization from France Publications, Inc. For information on reprints of this article contact Barbara Sherer at (630) 554-6054.