Month: June 2023

Pell City Square, including Hobby Lobby, to open in September

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by staff

In the midst of handling the city’s burgeoning responsibilities on the massive development of Pell City Square Shopping Center, an April 2017 memory popped up on Pell City Manager Brian Muenger’s cell phone screen.

It was a photo he had taken from atop the old St. Clair Regional Hospital building. The focal point? Construction of McSweeney Automotive. Except for the spot cleared for McSweeney, nothing else was there, only woods.

What a difference six years later. Not only is McSweeney Chevrolet Dodge Jeep Ram commanding a presence over I-20 and U.S. 231, Starbuck’s, Jersey Mike’s, The St. Clair and Tavern at The St. Clair usher in crowds daily at their thriving nearby businesses to the west.

To the east, the hospital is no longer there. Instead, a 147,000 square foot retail center is taking shape.

A year to the month that dirt was hoisted from ceremonial shovels to begin the construction of Pell City Square, officials are expected to check off the longtime dream from its wish list.

The ribbon is expected to be cut in September on the center fronting I-20 just off U.S. 231 South on John Haynes Drive. An exact date has not been set. That announcement should come about five to six weeks out from opening, Muenger said.

The project partnering Noon Real Estate, City of Pell City, St. Clair County Commission and St. Clair Economic Development Council represents a major breakthrough in retail development for the city and county, adding familiar names like Hobby Lobby, Old Navy, TJ Maxx, Pet Smart, Five Below, Rack Room Shoes, Ross Dress for Less and Ulta Beauty.

The development’s early vision is credited to Bill Ellison, who introduced developers to the property and its prospects. Ellison developed the center and surrounding businesses that Walmart now anchors, and the U.S. 231 bridge connecting the two developments now bears his name in recognition of his work in developing the areas.

But that’s not the end of this story. More development is expected at the nearly 18-acre site. It’s just too soon to announce anything official, said Muenger.

He did give a hint at what’s expected, though. The user agreement for the city’s part of the development specifies what should be located there – a “national, sit-down restaurant” like Outback and Olive Garden. While no agreement has been reached, the city and its development team have been working with prospective businesses “in that genre,” Muenger said.

He added that the original plat has been revised to accommodate specific additional businesses, and one, or both, of the outparcels on the western end closest to the interstate may have announcements by the time of the opening of the center in September.

In the meantime, transportation crews have been busily preparing for increased traffic likely coming its way. The widening of John Haynes Drive has been completed. So has a retaining wall built near U.S. 231 South to give the outlet enough width for a fifth lane, enabling a new outbound turn lane. That will give drivers access to three turn lanes.

Traffic light signalization is being improved at Jeanne Pruett Drive and U.S. 231 to help with the flow of traffic.

What all that means is by September, the city will enter a new era of economic development with the opening of the center and the array of retail it offers to citizens plus the benefits coming to city coffers. First year sales projections are $25 million. At an effective tax rate of 5 percent, that’s an additional $1,250,000 per year. “It’s very material to our local budgets,” Muenger said.

It opens up another corridor for retail growth and other commercial developments are expected to follow. “It closes the gap in retail shopping needs,” Muenger said. And those shoppers “can stay here to find what they need rather than travel outside the city.”

When he thinks back to that photo on his phone – merely a clearing in the woods taken from the rooftop of an abandoned hospital – Muenger can’t help but see how quickly that entire area of the city has transformed.

“It’s extremely exciting for the city,” Muenger said. “We’ve worked for a very long time. It’s very gratifying. It’s what people told us they wanted to see here.”

Come September, it will all be open for business.

Phillips Family returns to its roots

Story by Paul South
Photos by Richard Rybka

As part of the construction business, Tiffeny Phillips Robertson has put her sweat, heart and mind to some of Alabama’s marquee projects – like the Honda Manufacturing plant in Lincoln and Birmingham’s Protective Stadium.

But her heart has always been here at Red Hill Farms-Phillips Family, the place her parents, Lonnie and Teresa Phillips bought some 50 years ago.

In that half century, the Phillips family, also including little sister, Kayla Phillips Lamb, transformed their spread from a commercial poultry producer for Gold Kist to a spot where folks can find farm-raised beef and chicken, eggs of all sorts, honey from their 45 hives, fresh vegetables and good, old-fashioned hoop cheese in a nod to an old-fashioned country store.

And, perhaps most important – as a venue for birthday parties, corporate retreats, small weddings and as home to a petting zoo – Red Hill Farms-Phillips Family is a place for growing merriment and memories on its 40 acres.

Ducks, chickens and turkeys roam the place, along with dwarf goats, miniature and full-size horses, llamas and alpacas, full-size goats and pigs. A petting zoo opened this year.

James Herriot, the late English veterinarian and author of All Creatures Great and Small, could run a full-time practice here.

Tiffeny and her husband, Chris, became more involved in the farm eight years ago after her mom’s death and a few years later returned from Augusta, Ga., to expand the farm with her father, Lonnie. Now a farm market operates in a red barn that shimmers against green grass. Produce – much of it grown in St. Clair County and in the state – is sold here.

“For the most part, we try to keep at least 75 percent of out produce grown in Alabama if not in St. Clair County,” Robertson says. “We have a lot of amateur and novice farmers. They grow a bunch of crops, and we buy their harvest from them. They get to see their bounty, and we get to sell it to the public through our market.”

Amish meats and cheeses and rolled butter are also on sale in the market. Candies and fried pies are available to satisfy that sweet tooth. And apple cider vinegar and herbal health teas are among the offerings.

Pell City craftspeople and artists are celebrated as well. For example, local veteran David Carden creates beautiful wood bowls from cypress and magnolia wood.

The market opened in 2022.

“We’re just trying to spread the word that buying from a national chain is not always the best thing,” Robertson says. “Buy local. Shop small. Support local businesses.”

Events bring visitors

Red Hill Farms is always up for a celebration. Right now, Red Hill is taking “baby steps” as an event spot.

“We’re doing any kind of party,” Robertson says. “As we grow, we do small weddings, birthday parties. We let people fish in our stocked ponds. We have a petting and feed experience with all our animals.

Red Hill also takes its animals to local schools as part of an educational effort.

“As a farmer’s daughter, I always thought that everyone in the world lived like this,” Robertson says. “That everybody knew the difference between a cow or a heifer, but that is not the truth. There are a lot of people who have lived in concrete jungles – big cities – and they have no idea.”

The parties – visitors bring their own food and beverages – are entertained by the horses, Butch and Sundance, alpacas named Einstein and Waylon, and a llama, a “funny little character” named George.

 The alpaca named for the mop-topped science genius is easily recognizable. “His hair is everywhere, like Einstein,” Robertson says.

What you don’t see, but you can feel at Red Hill Farms is love – of the animals, of family, of the land, of country and community. Lonnie Phillips is a Vietnam veteran. Tiffeny’s husband, Chris, served in the War on Terror after 9/11.

“We love that people are enjoying (the farm) so much,” Robertson says. “That’s the biggest kick we get out of it. You know, people ask me all the time why we don’t charge more for our parties. One, we are an operational farm and two, I want people to experience it without having to take out a loan,” she explains.

“We’re not necessarily here to get rich. I just want people to know who we are.”

Other plans are in the works, like a place for kids to learn how to rope, or how to milk a cow or goat, or harvest honey from a hive, “Minus the bees, of course. We’re trying to educate as well as provide,” Robertson says.

There’s a joy in experiencing a simple life, she adds. “Everybody just can’t go to a beach resort for vacation. Everyone doesn’t want to deal with the heat and the traffic at an amusement park. They want something to do outdoors. Everybody needs the sunshine.”

Her childhood house – shaped like a barn – is still home for her dad. Every building on the property is red, eye popping on green grass against a blue sky. She and her sister, Kayla, grew up with their parents on this beautiful plot of land as they watched their father work tirelessly to improve the farm, year after year.

“As a kid, I wondered why we were always buying red stuff.”

A director of construction for a major firm, Robertson never thought she would return to the family business. For her, it’s about honoring and preserving her parents’ legacy of labor and love.

“I wanted to preserve it the way it was until it was my time not to be here anymore. I want our toddlers to grow up and understand what their grandparents worked so hard for, fought for and loved so much.”

The Robertsons have a 24-year-old son, Colten, as well as a 3-year-old daughter, named Brooklyn. Kayla Lamb and her husband, Bradley, have 3-year-old twins, Grady, and Madison.

All the children and grandchildren of Lonnie and Teresa Phillips, love the farm and contribute in different ways.

“Our three toddlers believe they are the tour guides for the pet and feed experience. It truly is the cutest thing ever!”

People often ask why she toils seven days a week to make the farm sustainable.

“This is my legacy, my sister’s legacy, and we would like to maintain it that way, until I no longer have a say.”

 For more information on Red Hill Farms visit its Facebook page at Red Hill Farms- Phillips Family, email redhillfarms3@gmail.com, or call 205-352-8803.

Bryants carry on a family tradition

Story by Paul South
Contributed photos

For Vaughan and Christa Bryant of Red Hill Farms, Spring is the season of miracles.

Bare branches blossom. Winter-browned grass goes green. The weather warms and the sun shines and new life bursts into being.

Sometimes, calves new to the world, graze and romp near the Bryants’ driveway.

“Vaughan laughs at me. But sometimes,  I love to stop, roll my windows down and just talk to the calves,” Christa Bryant says.

That’s life on a family farm, with time kept by the Creator’s clock –  seasonal and steady.

Those sorts of miracles mean Red Hill Farms customers can buy grass-fed beef and free-range pork. The Vaughn family has built and kept a tasty business across three generations.

In the Red Hill story, it seems something more of the Divine has been part of life here beyond the change of seasons. Consider how James Martin Bryant, Vaughan’s grandfather found this now 150-acre spread on the eve of America’s entry into World War II. Originally, 80 acres made up the Bryant homeplace.

As the nation quietly expanded the military in the run up to the war, the Bryant farm in Ohatchee was part of the land taken by eminent domain for the construction of Fort McClellan and Pelham Range.

The James Bryant family – along with their neighbors – had to move. And Providence seemed to take a hand, thanks to a family friend, then the pastor at Mount Pisgah Baptist Church.

“They asked him if he knew of any farms in the area over here, and he did,” Vaughan Bryant says. “That was the beginning of the farm here in Cropwell.”

As for the Good Lord’s role, Vaughan adds, “I don’t have any absolute proof of that. But I think that the Lord is always leading us in the way we should go. And there was a lot of church involvement in our being here.”

For Red Hill Farms, that was the “In the beginning” moment.

James Bryant grew cotton, corn and vegetables, made sweet honey and raised cows, chickens and pigs for food and for finances, hauling his wares to sell in town.

That’s the way it continued for the Bryants until 2011. Then, the farm took a turn fitting for the 21^st century.

“You know, raising cattle on our scale is kind of a very low profit ordeal, Vaughan Bryant says. “We were looking for something that would bring in a little more income, to try something new. I was to a point in my work career where I wanted to have something going on the farm that would bring in more income, so we tried raising chickens for meat for three or four years. That’s what brought us into the direct-to-consumer marketing that we’re doing now.”

A 2016 story by the United States Department of Agriculture found that 61 percent of farms engaged in direct-to consumer sales had the same owners five years later, compared to 55 percent of farms that did not market directly to consumers, suggesting that DTC farms are more stable.

Now, that direct-to-consumer approach applies to grass-fed beef and free-range pork. Vaughan and Christa are able to run the farm on their own with pork and beef being less labor intensive than the poultry business.

“We thought that we could move into our beef and maybe add pork, and she and I both could take care of that and handle the marketing of it a little easier than we could raising the chickens like we were doing.”

In part, the move was driven by customer demand.

“When we were doing the chicken, people would ask, ‘What about beef?’,” Vaughan says. “People’s comments while we were doing the chickens kind of prompted us to sell the beef and pork that way.”

There is a deep commitment to the land and to raising their livestock in a natural, humane way, thus the free-range pork and grass-fed beef.

“We try to raise our animals as near to the natural way as we can,” he explains. “Now, there’s certain elements – we have to take care of our health and the health of the animals – so we try to stay away from as much of the industrial management style as we can. But we know we have to do a certain amount of medical care from time to time – worming and certain vaccines – but we try to not go overboard in that.”

What’s the difference to the consumer between grocery store meat counter and the Bryant method of raising livestock?  Grass and natural grain and sunlight and the animal’s ability to exercise make a delicious difference for hungry customers. He draws from the example of free-range Cornish Rock hens.

“You can give them the ability to eat grain and bugs and (have) sunlight and that chicken will taste completely different from the one that was raised indoors. Same with the pigs.”

Industrial farm-raised pigs live on indoor concrete slabs, with 24/7 food. Free range porkers do what they do naturally, roam and run, eat natural food and wallow in the mud.

As for the taste, a Bryant-produced pork chop is juicier and with a richer flavor, a byproduct of the free-range method and the use of heirloom breeds not used in mass production.

“Don’t cook it twice. Cook it like you would a ribeye steak,” Bryant says of the couple’s favorite Red Hill product, the pork chop. “That thing is so delicious. It’s crazy good. All of our cuts are that way.”

Christa also endorses the thick Red Hill chops as her favorite.

“Our steaks are wonderful. But you can’t get a pork chop anywhere like ours.”

 Vaughan has spent pretty much his entire life on the family land, loving time in the pasture among the animals watching them come into the world and grow.

“Even from a young age, it was in my head that I would someday farm,” he says. “There’s a certain satisfaction from knowing you’re able to foster that animal along to a point where they can be someone else’s enjoyment other than mine.”

More important than raising livestock, farm life played a positive role in the rearing of the Bryant children and grandchildren, Christa Bryant says. Hard work, love and sacrifice are staples of farm life. Vacations are not.

“I do believe we were able to raise our children and grandchildren in a way that provided some character in them in a way that many children are not able to have,” she says. “Of course, they didn’t always see it that way.”

 As hard as farming can be, there’s something comforting about a family that toils and produces a product and holds fast to their values in a cryptocurrency, nanosecond world.

  Vaughan shares the family farming philosophy. It harkens back to 1941 and a word from an Ohatchee Baptist preacher and Divine Providence. “Raised with the Creator’s design in mind.”

“We enjoy what we do,” Christa says. “And what you would purchase here on the farm came from right here on the farm. Unlike a grocery store we can show you where they grew up.”

Editor’s Note: For more information about Red Hill Farms and a list of their products, visit redhillfarms.com, or call 205-812-9953.