Northport Councilwoman Explains Decision To Vote Against $350M Lagoon Concept

NORTHPORT, AL — District 4 Councilwoman Jamie Dykes brought two pages of questions to Monday night's public hearing that saw the Northport City Council vote 4-1 to enter a public-private partnership agreement with developers to move forward on a mixed-use beach lagoon resort that is expected to draw up to $350 million in capital investment.

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Still, Dykes told Patch in a sit-down interview on Wednesday that even when she arrived at City Hall earlier in the afternoon on Monday, she didn't know how she would vote on the project.

Instead, she waited to hear the pitch from University Beach, LLC and ultimately became the lone vote in opposition to the controversial project.

"My mind was not made up before I walked into that meeting," she said. "I was waiting to see the presentation before I made up my mind."

Here's a look at the map of the location, with the University Beach logo representing the site for the proposed mixed-use development:

The nuances of how the vote played out Monday night were somewhat complicated for many to understand, including this reporter, and Dykes addressed criticism over her decision to vote for unanimous consent immediately before voting in opposition to the public-private partnership agreement.

As Patch previously reported, had the matter failed to be approved for unanimous consent, then it would have forced a first and second reading of the resolution for the agreement. But some appeared to have been under the impression that this was the actual vote on the project and several attendees aired vocal frustrations as they got up and walked out of the council chamber.

"If I had voted no on that, all that would have happened is that [City Council President Jeff Hogg] could have called a special meeting for 24 hours later," she said. "Then it would have been Wednesday at probably noon and that vote would have been taken and nobody would have been heard. No one was going to be able to talk again and no minds were going to get changed in that time period.

"My viewpoint was that it's delaying the inevitable," Dykes continued. "Nobody's mind on the council was going to change in 24 hours or two weeks, so why not get it over with while they were in there? And I don't think people understand that. I ran this through City Hall to make sure I knew what I was talking about and that would have been the procedure had I stopped the unanimous consent."

The resort-lagoon concept has stirred substantially more public opposition compared to the initial $20 million concept of a water park with a few plastic slides and a lazy river.

However, as Patch reported in the hours before the meeting, the Texas-based developers advised Northport City Administrator Glenda Webb and City Engineer Tera Tubbs that such a venture for a small water park would likely fail to produce any kind of real financial return and, instead, probably be a pretty risky endeavor for the city's finances.

ALSO READ | 'It's Not A Water Park': Developer Discusses Northport Project

This insight then prompted city leaders to make the pivot to the mixed-use lagoon concept on nearly 100 combined acres off of McFarland Boulevard.

According to the city, University Beach aims to build a:

"[F]irst-class, mixed-use facility, in two or more phases, with a water park that has a lazy river, a water slide tower with at least five slides, a kids zone with interactive water features, and an approximately 10-acre lagoon with a sand beach, together with a beach club with at least 10,000 square feet of indoor restaurant and bar space and an outdoor concert stage and facility with at least 12,000 square feet of outdoor seating, along with residential lots, hotels, retail space, an event center, and parking and other infrastructure."

Here's a look at some of the renderings:

While the public seems to be almost completely opposed to this incarnation of the new development, Dykes wrestled with her own frustrations Monday night as she tried to reach a decision.

"When I was asking our attorney questions, I got shut down by our council president for asking him questions, which I thought was a little bit out of line," she said. "Nonetheless, it happened and a lot of my questions were answered throughout the process and I still asked a lot of questions. There were things I wanted to know and questions my constituents had brought to me."

Indeed, Dykes was having a respectful exchange with the city's legal counsel ahead of the presentation and vote after she asked if the developers would manage and operate the mixed-use development.

But when attempting to ask a follow-up to her original question, Hogg interrupted Dykes to mention that the developers would go over the dynamics of the project later in the meeting and there would be time for elected officials to ask questions.

This exchange, on its face, is benign enough to not raise major red flags to those in attendance, but did appear to weigh on Dykes in the days that followed.

The questions remain, though, with one offered up by the councilwoman regarding ongoing staffing issues that forced several local businesses to close down due to a sheer lack of labor.

Developer Kent Donahue responded by saying University Beach planned to cast a wide net for potential hires, including possibly bringing in international candidates. This caused the mostly conservative crowd to erupt in protest, with some attendees shouting "illegals!"

However, one such inquiry she did have answered related to the lack of a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the project, before saying the city's legal department informed her that this was because the 85-acre property eyed by University Beach LLC was never the city's property.

For the 11-acre parcel purchased by the city in 2021, she explained that it did not have to be put out for bid after the city deeded the property to the developer as part of the public-private partnership agreement.

Nevertheless, Dykes lamented the city's handling of the public notice published in the Tuscaloosa News on Feb. 9, along with the lack of public input ahead of Monday when the city entered into the partnership.

"We were required to put out the legal notice first, but I don't think we or the developers handled the situation correctly in putting that legal notice out there without any explanation," she said. "I wanted to have a town hall and have it at County High or in our auditorium [at City Hall] where you have a panel and citizens could ask questions and have those questions answered on the spot."

Any kind of open community would not come to pass until a couple of hours before the vote on Monday, though, and Dykes received applause from some in the crowd when she voted against the resolution. She then reflected on the frustrations aired by those at the meeting and the online surge of memes and jokes aimed at the city for the decisions of its leaders to go ahead on the deal.

"There was no dialogue Monday night, so questions went unanswered," she said. "It was just handled poorly and there should have been something put out or they could have put something out concurrent with the legal notice that gives more of a scope and sequence of the whole thing instead of just popping out of nowhere and telling our constituents that we went from spending $20 million on a tiny water park to getting a $350 million Caribbean resort.

"It was the hardest decision I have made since I've been sitting on that Council," Dykes added of the votes on the partnership agreement. "I was in tears after the meeting because we're a laughingstock now. You cannot pull up social media without seeing anything but articles or new '82W' stickers."

The stickers, of course, make light of U.S. Highway 82 West in a humorous nod to the "30A" stickers that can often be seen on vehicles from Florida's Emerald Coast.

Reflecting on the progression of this incarnation of the development, Dykes said she was initially impressed but thought the project should probably be scaled down before being rolled out for public consideration.

"I happened to walk in on some people talking about it and they had some different pictures up of these kinds of places and my first reaction was that I thought it was really cool," she said. "But again, I didn't know the breadth that this one was going to be. Maybe if it had been $100 million, it would have been a little more palatable."

With this in mind, Dykes went on to express her concerns over one aspect of the development that would see 64 luxury beach homes constructed, with a starting price tag of $800,000. As Patch previously reported, a website for the development was launched immediately after the vote and University Beach is already taking reservations for the posh homes in the 77-acre master-planned community

Click here to view the University Beach website.

The floor plans for the beach-inspired three-story townhomes range from 2,500 to 3,200 square feet, with each home offering two or three primary bedroom options and featuring an additional multi-purpose bunk room.

"There are some beautiful homes in Northport and some of them reside in my district," Dykes said. "But to have a neighborhood just full of homes that are almost a million dollars, I'm not sure what to think and, at this point, the whole thing is going to happen, theoretically speaking, so I hope it's successful. What other choice do we have at this point?"

It's also worth noting that the idea of a water park, aquatic center or anything similar has never really been a high priority for Dykes — a former teacher who led the failed push for Northport to get its own city school system and, when compared to a water park, she prefers investing recently secured bond money on another ongoing project — the large-scale youth sports tournament facility currently under construction near Kentuck Park.

"I've never made it a secret, if I had my choice I would have sunk every dime into a sports complex," she said. "That's my passion and is what I would have done. But we've been told from the get-go that we were getting a water park, regardless. After it all came out what we might be getting, though, everybody that messaged me, text me, called me, emailed me, was vehemently opposed to [University Beach]."

Dykes has found herself on a political island at present after being forced to resign as the council's representative on the city's Planning & Zoning Commission in May 2023 — an instance she cites as the true beginning of her troubles with colleagues on the council.

As Patch previously reported, Dykes was given an ultimatum by City Attorney Ron Davis to either resign from the Planning and Zoning Commission or face a public hearing and subsequent council vote to remove her from the advisory board. She then insists problems faced at present began in earnest after her criticism of the efficacy of the council committee structure.

In protest of the committee system, she resigned from her two committee assignments and criticized the notion that there was too much authority in the hands of too few. This City Hall spat resulted in Dykes and her elected colleagues regularly locking horns as those other council members formed a united front against the likes of Dykes and former Mayor Bobby Herndon.

The political headaches for Dykes also followed the tumult left in the wake of Herndon's resignation roughly two years into his term. A staunch political ally and a longtime friend of Dykes, Herndon told Patch on Tuesday that his decision to resign was made after he began to feel threatened with retaliation from developers and the elected officials they bankroll who work on their behalf.

During Herndon's interview with Patch, the former mayor expressed respect and empathy for the councilwoman, while also openly worrying that she was on the receiving end of similar treatment — a notion Dykes confirmed to Patch on Wednesday.

"It's been hell since Bobby left," she said. "City staff has never been the problem, but perception is reality for most folks and I've been ostracized and treated like a leper because I spoke out."

It's been an emotional stretch for Dykes, indeed, after the death of her aunt the day before the public hearing and the subsequent deluge of questions, concerns and suggestions from impassioned constituents. Following the approval of the partnership agreement on Monday, though, concerns and questions continue to loom like storm clouds over Northport City Hall.

"If something happens with the developer and the money runs out, I have no idea what the city is going to be left with and I pray that doesn't happen," she said. "But in this economy, what if it does? What would happen? I don't have an answer and I don't think anyone else does, either."

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