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  #41  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2005, 4:27 AM
neilson neilson is offline
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Montgomery Mayor Tells Residents They Should Carry Guns

POSTED: 5:06 pm CDT September 15, 2005
UPDATED: 5:38 pm CDT September 15, 2005

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- While unaware he was being recorded at a civic meeting, Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright offered a crime solution that has stunned the city of Montgomery and the nation.

"What we need to do... Is there any media? Chief, can I say this? I've said it one time…Get a gun and teach our folks how to use them and shoot' em," Bright said. "Now, I'm telling you, that's what we need to do."

Bright was speaking on the issues of having an understaffed police force, clogged courts and a vast majority of crime in Montgomery committed by the same relatively small number of people over and over again.

"That's the only thing that we can really tell our folks to do at this point in time," Bright said. "If there's anything else that you know that the chief and I can do to keep this crime down, keep these guys from stealing... let me know."

The Montgomery Police Department was asked what their response was to the mayor's statements.

"The mayor made some good points. If a person chooses to own a handgun, then we think it is important they know how to use that handgun and they know when the law allows them to use it," said Lt. Huey Thornton of the Montgomery Police Department.

So far, Bright has not commented on his statements.

Copyright 2005 by NBC13.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Have a comment about this story? E-mail us at morenews@nbc13.com.
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  #42  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2005, 7:48 AM
ExpatBaman ExpatBaman is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bystander1
Here's some news (that we already knew a while back) from the Birmingham Business Journal:


Colonial BancGroup to build new corporate HQ in Montgomery


Colonial BancGroup Inc. officially confirmed Wednesday night what many Montgomery area residents have known for months: The bank holding company will build a new corporate headquarters on a 25-acre site in the capital city.

The 218,000-square-foot headquarters will consist of a six-story operations building and a three-story executive building joined by a rotunda lobby. The new headquarters will be home to more than 550 employees.

Goodwyn Mills and Cawood Inc., a Montgomery-based architectural and engineering firm that also has a Birmingham office, designed the building. Birmingham's Brasfield & Gorrie LLC is the general contractor.

Colonial BancGroup (NYSE: CNB) has assets of about $21 billion and 309 banking offices in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Nevada and Texas.



They chose sprawl over a 16-story HQ downtown.
Such a waste, 25 acres for one little bank HQ. Will they abandon their downtown building?
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  #43  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2005, 1:36 PM
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my understanding is yes... and the guy who just bought it a couple of years ago ain't happy...
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  #44  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2005, 4:58 PM
Joey Hester Joey Hester is offline
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This sucks!!!! I am very unhappy about this decision. I was looking forward to a new 16 story or taller building downtown. I guess the employees talked them into building closer to where most of them live in East Montgomery, so that they did not have to commute to downtown. This is terrible.

I definitely will not bank with Colonial now!!

Alos, I going to assume that the City was not able or unwilling to work with Colonial to keep them downtown.

BTW, when are renderings of the hotel and convention center going to be made available to the public. This is very unusual. You would think that they would be so proud of this development that they would be touting it big time!!! If anyone has any renderings, can you please post them.
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  #45  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2005, 6:08 PM
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No renderings have been posted yet.

I did notice today when I was downtown eating at Felder's (great burger btw), that they are starting to 'finish' the outside of the civic center add-on. It looked like stucco (faux) with sharp angled features (three horizontal lines towards the top). I guess they will have to redux the whole civic center, because it doesn't match in any way shape or form with the 70's brown glazed look of the rest of the building.
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  #46  
Old Posted Sep 17, 2005, 4:43 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Joey Hester
This sucks!!!! I am very unhappy about this decision. I was looking forward to a new 16 story or taller building downtown. I guess the employees talked them into building closer to where most of them live in East Montgomery, so that they did not have to commute to downtown. This is terrible.

I definitely will not bank with Colonial now!!

Alos, I going to assume that the City was not able or unwilling to work with Colonial to keep them downtown.



It was said that the owner of one of the buildings Colonial was leasing was going to raise the lease amount dramaticly at renewal time. So while Colonial would begin building it's new 16-story HQ down the street, it wanted the city to build two parking decks for them within six months. The city said they would try but their hands were full with other projects at the same time and couldn't guarantee them the six-month deadline.

Colonial used that as an excuse to go out east.
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  #47  
Old Posted Sep 17, 2005, 5:22 AM
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Hopefully Colonial will get bought out now for their treason
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  #48  
Old Posted Sep 17, 2005, 5:23 AM
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double post.
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Last edited by Sulley; Sep 17, 2005 at 1:22 PM.
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  #49  
Old Posted Sep 17, 2005, 5:23 AM
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triple post?
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Last edited by Sulley; Sep 17, 2005 at 1:22 PM.
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  #50  
Old Posted Sep 17, 2005, 1:21 PM
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Holy crap - I never posted that three times. Eugh.
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  #51  
Old Posted Sep 17, 2005, 2:02 PM
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Ohh, I thought you had just gone crazy... (crazier)
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  #52  
Old Posted Sep 18, 2005, 2:21 PM
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Here's a rendering of their new HQ from the Montgomery Advertiser. It's so 80's of them to build a sprawling corporate "campus" when so much emphasis is being put on smart growth within the city's core.

Forgive the quality of the pic but it's the best I could get...







Colonial abandons downtown plans

By David Irvin
Montgomery Advertiser



The decision to relocate the Colonial BancGroup corporate headquarters from downtown to the east side of Montgomery was officially announced by bank officials this week.

About 550 employees of the bank are expected to move out of downtown when the new facility is finished late in the fourth quarter of next year, said spokeswoman Merrie Betbeze Tolbert. More than 180 Colonial employees from the technology group, call center and print shop will remain downtown at the 1 Court Square location.

The announcement comes 11 months after Mayor Bobby Bright said the bank was considering building a new corporate headquarters downtown.

"Anytime you have a structure of that magnitude that they were going to build, it would have had a significant impact" on downtown revitalization, Bright said Friday.

At the time, the mayor entered negotiations with bank management to locate a proposed 15-story headquarters building downtown, offering to improve infrastructure in the district so they would build there.

"We did talk about some incentives for keeping them here, but it's obvious the incentives we could afford to offer were not significant enough," Bright said.

According to officials with the bank, the downtown building project was considered seriously as an option, but the decision to move east was made in consideration of possible future growth.

The new 25-acre corporate campus will have a six-story operations building and a three-story executive building joined by a rotunda lobby, according to a news release from the company.

The construction represents a $50 million investment in the community, and officials describe the new building as a combination of traditional and modern design, with an exterior blend of pre-cast granite and metal.

"After weighing the options available to us in locations throughout the Southeast, we elected to keep our home in Montgomery," said Eric Hamilton, president and CEO of corporate lending for Alabama and Georgia, in a news release. "Keeping our headquarters here is a positive reflection on the quality of the community."

Until this week the bank had not officially announced its plans to relocate, but ground was broken at the site earlier in the summer. At a July planning commission meeting, the bank -- represented by the design firm Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood -- requested new zoning on the land purchased at Atlanta Highway and Technacenter Drive.

Efforts are already underway to find another tenant for the building Colonial will vacate at 1 Commerce St., Tolbert said.

Colonial BancGroup is a $20.9 billion bank holding company that operates 309 banking offices in five states, the press release said.

Last edited by bystander1; Sep 19, 2005 at 4:32 AM.
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  #53  
Old Posted Sep 19, 2005, 2:12 AM
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*yawn*

Thanks Bobby!
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  #54  
Old Posted Sep 22, 2005, 3:49 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Joey Hester
BTW, when are renderings of the hotel and convention center going to be made available to the public. This is very unusual. You would think that they would be so proud of this development that they would be touting it big time!!! If anyone has any renderings, can you please post them.

According to an e-mail sent to me from the mayor's assistant, the public will see the first renderings of the new hotel and renovated convention center by September 30th!

Who knows, maybe they're for real this time...
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  #55  
Old Posted Sep 22, 2005, 3:03 PM
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My company keeps their Montogmery head office dowtown - hell Regions has more space dowtown than Colonial, I beleive. What a shitty move on their part...
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  #56  
Old Posted Sep 22, 2005, 10:38 PM
Joey Hester Joey Hester is offline
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Thanks Bystander1!!! I am not going to hold my breath though. However, if they are released by September 30th, please post for all to see!!!! Thanks again.
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  #57  
Old Posted Sep 23, 2005, 4:56 AM
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bystander1 bystander1 is offline
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Here are some interesting bits of info about the hotel/convention center from an interview with Mayor Bright in the August edition of the Central Alabama Business Journal:



CABJ: The Montgomery Civic Center is being expanded into a convention center and a hotel is being added. What's the latest on those projects?

Bright: We partnered with ARH, a subsidiary of RSA (Retirement Systems of Alabama). We contracted with them and relied on them to give us all the details. They were projecting the total project would be between $80 million-$85 million. They came back with a bigger budget and it's now going to be about $130 million.

CABJ: The city's share of the project is $29 million. Has that changed?

Bright: No. I have a contract that my cap is $29 million and we have that money available.

CABJ: Why has the overall cost grown from $85 million to $130 million?

Bright: It's going to be a five-star hotel and one of the nicest hotels in this state. It's going to have 350 rooms. It will have a number of meeting rooms and we're expanding the civic center by about 30,000 square feet for exhibitions. But we are also adding another 20,000 square feet for meetings.

CABJ: A performing arts center is also being constructed.

Bright: This is another item that caused the cost to go up. We have a contract with ARH and RSA to build a performing arts theater and they had initially thought it would be a temporary-type of facility that you could break it down and use it for an exhibit hall. They determined not to do that and make it a permanent, fixed performing arts theater.

CABJ: How many people will it seat?

Bright: Between 1,800-2,000 people. There's also the parking deck that is part of the $29 million the city is spending. The parking deck will have room for 650-700 cars.
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  #58  
Old Posted Sep 23, 2005, 1:14 PM
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thoraudio thoraudio is offline
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now... if they'll just post a rendering and get started on the hotel part
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  #59  
Old Posted Sep 23, 2005, 1:24 PM
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Wow, $130 million ? I'm envious...
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  #60  
Old Posted Sep 28, 2005, 5:07 AM
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RSA plans to build a 10-story office tower with a penthouse on top along with a 685 space parking deck across from their current HQ building downtown.

Could this be Bronner's new digs?
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