ORANGE BEACH, AL — As talk in town swirls around massive towers planned at the only north-south intersection on beach road, just to the east a groundbreaking for a more modest tower, one years in the making, is planned.

A Tuesday ceremonial groundbreaking at Perdido Dunes Tower has been called off, but the general contractor is already on site where developers are planning a 12-story development with at total of 20 units.

The site is located between Phoenix VIII and Phoenix East and at the south end of a development of townhouses called Perdido Dunes.

And its saga began the day after Hurricane Ivan hit. At the end of that row townhouses facing the Gulf was an eight-unit, horseshoe-shaped building built in 1983, before the incorporation of Orange Beach.

Ivan and the lack of adequate insurance insured its doom.

“We were under insured and each unit would have had to pay $70,000 to $80,000 to rebuild the eight units with the international building code in place at that time which would be a steel and concrete structure,” Laura Ward, one of the last two remaining owners of the original eight, said. “There are three entities involved and only two of the original eight are involved.”

Those entities acquired the other parties’ interest in the building and began planning the building that is now coming to fruition. Soon after Ivan, the group began working on plans and paperwork to start anew on the site.

“Once we started working with an architect, started working with the city and I guess it was December of 2007 when everything was approved,” Ward said. “Of course, you know what happened to the economy in 2008.”

Then another storm, one in the form of a lawsuit, hit the proposed project.

“Following the issuance of the permits, a lawsuit was filed by the existing Perdido Dunes Association prohibiting construction of the project,” Community Development Director Kit Alexander said. “Due to the inability of the developers to act on their permits, the city imposed a permit extension that would expire 180 days from the notice of settlement of the case.”

In October of 2014, Orange Beach officials were notified of an executed settlement agreement and order of dismissal from the Court making the permits valid until April 19, Alexander said.

“We paid for everything, all of our permitting early and we have just hung in there,” Ward said. “There have been several issues but we have finally got to the point where we feel like we are ready to go.

“We’re ready to move now. We’ve just persevered all this time.”

The four-bedroom, three-bath units will cost between $675,000 and $750,000. There will be a total of 20 units with parking space for two vehicles per unit on site.

“We’re building those eight back and 12 additionals to help us financially because we’ve put so much into the project,” Ward said.

All of the units will have wraparound balconies that can be accessed from the master bedroom and living room. A pool and dune walkover will also be included in the development.