GULF SHORES — 

Do you want a restaurant and three waterfront sidewalks?

Or do you want a restaurant?

Or do you want both? Or one sidewalk and a restaurant? Maybe just two?

 Well, sidewalks and who’ll pay for them aside, Mayor Robert Craft asked, can Acme Oyster House move forward with its new Gulf Shores location in the nascent Waterway Village District?

On Monday night the council OK’d Acme’s site plan with a provision that the company pay just more than $15,000 toward the building of an eight-foot walkway parallel to the Intracoastal Waterway, between the water and the new restaurant. If the city does not use the funds to construct the sidewalk within five years it must pay the money back to Acme.

After a nearly hour-long discussion on June 17 of what pathways may or not be built and who would ultimately pay for them, and where they would go, Mayor Robert Craft went to the core of the issue.

“Does this unknown delay them from getting open?” Craft said. “They need to know if these unknowns are going to interfere with their plans for opening.”

For Craft, getting the restaurant open as soon as possible is a priority.

 “I think we all agree that one of the foundations of success of this Waterway District is Acme’s agreement to locate there,” Craft said. “So let’s make sure that whatever we do we accommodate what they need first and help make that reasonable and possible and allow them to proceed. Let’s not get tied up in waiting on Corps permits and future funding requirements that negate their ability to locate there.

“Our goal would be to look at it in a way that accommodates Acme in the best way that we possibly can.”

So at least for now, for sure, a restaurant. And money to eventually construct at least one walkway.

Then we can talk more about sidewalks. And talk they did.

According to Planning Director Andy Bauer, any new development along the Intracoastal Waterway  is required to build a 12-foot pedestrian pathway.

“The (Army Corps of Engineers) has a 500-foot easement on both sides of the Intracoastal Waterway,” Bauer said. “They control what’s built in that easement. It’s something we’ve had on the books for a number of years.  Any development along the Intracoastal Waterway has to construct a 12-foot wide pedestrian pathway.

“I’ve spoken to Acme about that and they have some issues about who’s responsibility the pathway is, the design and is it approved by the Corps yet.”

And it’s part of the city’s plan to make a Water Village District based on restaurants and entertainment and eventually homes or condos.

“We want to foster compact development that is bicycle and pedestrian friendly,” Bauer said.

A path along the waterway would be an integral part of that vision.

But many, many questions remain about that path or paths. Public Works Director Mark Acreman said having two tiers of bulkheading with one closer to the water would allow boats to tie up and have access to the restaurant.

In one design its a three-tier system with the two bulkheaded walkways, one a boardwalk over the water and the other a brick paver, then a “meandering path” even further up the bank.

Acme is currently being asked to help with the cost of the paths. Its design needs to be completed, gone over and OK’d by the Corps. Only then will the cost be known.

“Currently we are working on the design of that pathway,” Bauer said. “We are also having the design finalized and will present that to the Corps and hopefully get approval for specifics of what we want to do.”

It’s there where Acme representatives have concerns.

“The regulations require us to build a 12-foot pathway, we understand that,” Engineer Joe Bullock of Preble-Rish representing Acme said. “But we’re very sensitive to the amount of cost that’s going into the site.”

Marketing Director Jeremy DeBlieux was a little more direct.

“In essence what we’re being asked is to sign a blank check and hand it over,” DeBlieux said. “We’re very fortunate we are a very successful company, but this is a single unit entity we have here with local investors and local partners.

“We don’t have some big pot of money in the French Quarter to come put to this project. We have a limited amount of funds. That’s our biggest concern.”

As for the meandering path, DeBlieux pointed out that if it is built only on the Acme site, it will be “a path leading to nowhere.” A condo development sits to the east of the Acme site and an empty lot, the former White Knight Seafood plant property, to the west.

“We see these, with all due respect, as infrastructure,” DeBlieux said. “In our minds it’s a responsibility of the municipality.”

Once again, Craft brought it down to the main concern: Getting the restaurant built to jumpstart the Waterway Village District while trying to follow the regulations and intentions of the new district.

“I agree with Jeremy,” Craft said. “It’s not fair for us to ask him to write a blank check. And that’s not our intention. This is the problem of being the first guy in.

“The good news is we really want to listen to your requests to try to help make sense of that. The bad news is we don’t really know where the path’s going.”