Developers Give First Look at Pared-Down Sports Illustrated Resort for Tuscaloosa

Developers with Travel and Leisure were back in North Tuscaloosa Thursday afternoon to present new, pared-down plans for a $150 million Sports Illustrated resort on the Black Warrior River.

The project, planned for Rice Mine Road past the closed Cypress Inn restaurant but before the Northern Riverwalk trail, is significantly smaller than the version first pitched last fall, which developers voluntarily removed from council consideration after community backlash over the size and scope of the project, its aesthetics and more.

Geoff Richards, the COO for Vacation Ownership and Travel + Leisure Co., led a presentation hosted by city councilman Norman Crow to discuss the new plans on Thursday.

Video and audio recording were not allowed in the room, limiting the ability to deliver full and direct quotes from the meeting.

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The new designs completely remove a 137-key hotel from the plans and scrap "Phase 2," which would have added four towers of condos and timeshare units after the resort and hotel were completed. A more than 17,000 square-foot Central Services Building has also been dropped from the plans.

The resort buildings are also now to be six stories, down from nine, reducing the scope of the project and the amount of skyline it will dominate.

Richards said the concept is now just condos for sale and vacation ownership - his wording for timeshare units - supplemented by food and beverage options in 12,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space, down from 18,000.

The resort will also now feature 8 pickleball courts and an events lawn for public use, and will connect the Tuscaloosa Riverwalk to the soon-to-be-expanded Woolsey Finnell Bridge as well as the Northern Riverwalk trailhead, eventually completing the miles-long river-spanning walking trail city leaders envision.

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Richards also reintroduced a crowded room to Travel + Leisure, and said they operate 220 resorts in North America, boasting more than 800,000 timeshare owners. When their resort in Tuscaloosa comes online, anyone in their resort network will be able to stay here, and local members will be able to travel to the company's other properties.

"If you purchase at the Sports Illustrated Resort in Tuscaloosa, you can go to the Margaritaville Resort in Destin, or the Margaritaville Resort in Atlanta, or you can go to the Club Wyndham Resort in Nashville," he said.

He said about 1 in 8 of their member families live within driving distance of the proposed Tuscaloosa resort - 100,000 people - and developers are confident they will be able to keep the property full and profitable.

"Our commitment isn't to come to Tuscaloosa, build a project and leave you," Richards said. "Our commitment is we want to build a project, we want to market and sell a project, and then we intend to manage the project for decades."

The effort to build the resort is also monumental and would boost the local economy, he argued - creating 1,100 temporary construction jobs, 120 permanent resort jobs and spending about $150 million to buy land, design buildings and get through construction.

The new plans were not enough to sway some residents who packed out a room in the Indian Hills County Club to hear the presentation. Loud concerns were still voiced about the building's red brick design, with some comparing it to the now-demolished Julia Tutwiler dorms on the University of Alabama campus or the SUPE Store.

Folks worried about increasing traffic on Rice Mine Road, which cannot be expanded because of its status as a scenic byway. They said the resort would hurt local restaurants and venues, drawing dollars away from residents who run their own businesses. And there was plenty of speculation about the worst-case scenario for what the developers may do with land set aside for the now-scrapped Phase 2 - even though any future construction would require new approvals from the city council.

Some citizens also spoke in favor of the resort and said any $150 million project will be a rising tide that lifts all boats, including locally owned businesses.

Norman Crow, who represents north Tuscaloosa and hosted the meeting, said the council will likely vote on whether to approve the new resort plans sometime in May.

For more coverage of the planned resort and other news from West Alabama, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.