Vestavia Motor Lodge

From Bhamwiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

The Vestavia Motor Lodge, formerly the Birmingham-Vestavia TraveLodge, was a 3-story, 54-room motel at 1459 Montgomery Highway in Vestavia Hills. It was opened in 1969 by Walter C. Maddox and Sam Raine, co-owners of the Birmingham TraveLodge in Five Points South. Raine exited the partnership before the motel was formally added to the 450+ location TraveLodge network in 1970.

On the evening of April 4, 1977 then hotel manager Larry Maddox exchanged words with salon owner Jody Ford outside the Brookwood Village cinema. Ford followed Maddox back to the hotel to confront him again, and Maddox retrieved a shotgun from his office and shot her to death. He pleaded not guilty by reason of self-defense and was acquitted at trial.

On September 2, 1979 Gary Clyde Warnken, son of Birmingham FBI agent Lloyd Warnken, was shot to death in the parking lot following an exchange of words at the Constantine's Lounge in the motel. Rudy Cannon was convicted of 1st degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

In 2011 Vestavia Hills officials determined, after numerous notices to the owner had been ignored, that the motel building was a public nuisance under the city's dangerous buildings ordinance, and initiated the process of effecting its demolition, which began in March 2014. The $75,000 cost was assessed against the property as a municipal lien.

Vestavia Hill's 2012 US-31 Corridor Redevelopment Plan, prepared by the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham, recommended that the area in the vicinity of the motel, which it termed "Patton Creek Crossing", should be redeveloped into a "mixed-use, walkable, and community-oriented development".

After the building was demolished, the Maddox family leased the vacant lot for use by various Christmas tree vendors and food trucks, including the Red Mountain Crawfish Company, Tacos Don Andy, and Taqueria Juarez.

In 2019 Larry Maddox asked the city to forgive half of the lien which would allow him to better market the site for redevelopment. In January 2020 he updated the city on his progress toward reaching an agreement with Waffle House restaurants to open a new location there. That development never progressed.

In 2023 the motel site was included within the "preliminary vision" for a redevelopment of the southern section of Montgomery Highway by the City of Vestavia Hills, focused on the use of the site of the former Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge which the city had acquired for demolition in 2022.

Ward Neely acquired the 2-acre former Motor Lodge site and worked with John Michael Bodnar of Vestavia 31 RE and Fifth Dimension Architects to produce a $6.3 million redevelopment plan to feature new locations for Waldo’s Chicken and Beer and Big Bad Breakfast sharing an outdoor dining area alongside 2 or 3 micro-business suites. In order to offset the cost of raising the site out of the Patton Creek flood plain, the developers successfully applied for up to $1.5 million in tax breaks from the City of Vestavia Hills.

Tenants

References

Retrieved from "http://bhamwiki.com/w/index.php?title=Vestavia_Motor_Lodge&oldid=211189"