GULF SHORES, – An as-yet unnamed business is projected to be locating in the new downtown district Gulf Shores is hoping to foster growth near the Intracoastal Waterway.

The city has for some time been studying an Intracoastal Waterway Overlay District that straddles the canal. A firm was hired in September for $8,800 to study the area and come up with ideas about adjusting the zoning regulations in the area to encourage growth.

“We do have one very important interested business looking to relocate in this newly designed area,” Mayor Robert Craft said during a council work session on March 19. “We have an opportunity to accomplish exactly what we have dreamed of having over there.”

At Tuesday’s regular council meeting, Gulf Shores OK’d an increase in the budget for the firm conducting the study, Watkins, Acy and Strunk.

“There’s been a cost overrun of $5,742 and I’m asking for the City Council to approve that cost overrun,” city Director of Planning and Zoning Andy Bauer told the council. “We kind of anticipated when we adopted the contract that we may go over that and we have. I have in my budget this year $10,000 for consulting services so I can cover that overrun.”

Craft said in light of one new business already interested in the area, the city would be wise to fund the request.

“This has been an important and well-received diversification of the city moving businesses over to the waterfront and getting some tourist activity off the beach,” he said. “I think its money well spent.”

At the same September meeting when the overlay district study was first proposed, a group called Working Waterfront made a presentation to the council for another study in the same area.

The group had received a $25,000 Alabama-Mississippi Sea grant and chose Gulf Shores as a prime area to study. The money will pay for a legal student to perform research on issues related to a fish market, pedestrian pathways and pocket parks.

“They are separate issues, but they kind of go hand in hand,” Bauer said at the time. “It’s worked out good we started working on both of them at the same time. It’s more design related than it is user related. Typical zoning regulations focus on uses, this is focused on design. “

Bauer sees “an entertainment type district along the waterway on each side and then enhancing and improving upon some of the local flavor that you already have there, some of the local history. That used to be old downtown Gulf Shores.”

Like Craft, Bauer says in the future this area could not only be attractive to tourists, but a vibrant residential area as well.

“It would be a great location to live because you have the schools here, shopping centers nearby,” Bauer said.