The Journal
What's Happening in Riverchase
What is being built, what is opening, what the city and the schools decided, and what the Cahaba is doing — for the neighborhood we live in. Written by hand, sourced every time.
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Baptist Health and Seale Harris Clinic will anchor the Riverwalk health center
Baptist Health and Seale Harris Clinic have signed leases as lead tenants of the planned Riverwalk Health & Wellness Center near Valleydale Road and I-65. Baptist Health expects to take about 25 percent of the building, and the center is expected to open in early 2028.
Read 3 min
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Riverchase Village drainage work is complete, and Glenwood Road bids are in
A Hoover councilor told WBRC that the Riverchase Village and Chester Street drainage projects are complete, Glenwood Road bids have been received and Lester Lane has bids out. The 2026 budget amendment we wrote about on September 28 is listed by the city as approved.
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Tonight's council agenda: an emergency Riverchase sewer force main replacement
The Hoover City Council meets at 6 p.m. tonight. On the agenda: an emergency declaration to replace the Riverchase #1 sewer force main, a lease document for the city's space at 250 Riverchase Parkway, and a $6.75 million police drone and body camera contract.
Read 3 min
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City staff do not recommend the Riverchase Office Park community center
The proposed 30,000-square-foot community center at 900 Concourse Parkway returns to Hoover's zoning board tonight. City staff are not recommending approval, citing the office zoning and the comprehensive plan. A Trace Crossings stormwater case is also back.
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The council adopted Hoover's 2027 budget. Here is what changed on the way.
Hoover's City Council unanimously approved the 2027 budget on September 28. It moved $275,000 from a stormwater study to drainage work and traffic signals, and the council also adopted the novelty fireworks ordinance and rescinded the 2002 burglar alarm ordinance.
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Nightly I-459 ramp closures at the Galleria, through mid-October
ALDOT is resurfacing 3.2 miles of I-459 through Hoover, from Exit 10 to Exit 13. Ramps close one at a time overnight, 7 p.m. to 6 a.m., with more rounds scheduled Sept. 27 to Oct. 1, Oct. 4 to 7 and Oct. 8 to 14.
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Tonight's council agenda, and $417,000 in leftover Riverchase Village drainage money
The Hoover City Council meets tonight at 6 p.m. to consider the 2027 budget, a novelty fireworks ordinance, and a 2026 budget amendment that would move $417,000 left over from the Riverchase Village drainage project to three other drainage jobs.
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What's in the Hoover school board's $275 million budget for 2027
The Hoover Board of Education approved a $275 million budget for fiscal 2027, with $225 million from the general fund. Special education spending rises to $46 million, and Riverchase Elementary is one of seven Title I schools.
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Hoover's proposed 2027 budget, and the lines in it that reach Riverchase
Mayor Nick Derzis has proposed spending $178 million from the general fund in fiscal 2027, up 4 percent. The council is expected to vote September 28, before the year starts October 1. Three of the capital lines are drainage, and one is Valleydale Road.
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On the calendar: a market this week, and three dates for October
Vintage Market Days is at the Finley Center September 24 through 26. Then Taste of Hoover on October 15, which runs its shuttle parking out of the Trader Joe's lot here in Riverchase, the Mayor's Ball on October 17, and the YMCA trunk-or-treat on October 24.
Read 3 min
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The old Big Lots is becoming two stores, not one
New reporting puts numbers on the HomeSense deal at Riverchase Crossings. The former Big Lots is 37,793 square feet and is being split — 27,278 to HomeSense, 10,515 to a Shoe Dept. Plus two other Hoover openings this month.
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A correction: there was a Riverchase case on last week's agenda
Last week we wrote that no case on Hoover's September 8 planning agenda carried a Riverchase address. One did. Case C-0726-14, at 900 Concourse Parkway, sits in the Riverchase Office Park, and the commission postponed it again on Tuesday over a traffic study.
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Hoover put a storm sewer job out to bid, and used drainage to stop a subdivision
The city advertised Bid 26-013 for storm sewer improvements on Glenwood Road on September 9, with a mandatory pre-bid meeting on September 16 and bids closing September 30. Three days earlier, city staff used downstream flooding to hold up four industrial lots.
Read 5 min
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All 16 Hoover schools made a national health list, plus the fall dates worth writing down
Every Hoover City school was named to America's Healthiest Schools for 2026, five with All-Star Awards. We also pulled the confirmed fall dates out of the city's August 24 council wrap-up, including a September 11 nomination deadline.
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Nothing in Riverchase is on Tuesday's planning agenda
Hoover's Planning and Zoning Commission meets Tuesday, September 8. We read the agenda case by case. Eight items, none of them at a Riverchase address, despite a newsletter that listed Riverchase among the neighborhoods affected.
Read 3 min
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July's Birmingham-area numbers, and why the headline on them is wrong
The Alabama Center for Real Estate published its July report for the Birmingham area: 1,319 closed sales, median price $326,500, 3.3 months of inventory, 38 days on market. Its own headline mislabels which figure fell 1.9%.
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The 9/11 memorial stair climb comes to the Galleria on September 12
Hoover marks the 25th anniversary of September 11 with a ceremony in the Riverchase Galleria Food Court and a climb equal to 110 stories in the Galleria Towers. Also new since we last wrote: Taste of Hoover will run shuttles from the Riverchase Shopping Center.
Read 3 min
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A play center with a 600-square-foot sandbox opened near the Galleria
Diggin' Depot Play Center is open on Old Montgomery Highway a few minutes from Riverchase, with a 600-square-foot indoor sandbox, desks for parents and Baba Java Coffee on site.
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The Galleria is for sale. Here is what is actually confirmed.
The Riverchase Galleria went on the market in June after 40 years. A new owner could be in place this fall, and the city has a redevelopment concept on the shelf. Here is the confirmed part, separated from the part that is still a drawing.
Read 5 min
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Riverchase and the Cahaba: what the city is actually doing about water
The city names Riverchase as one of its primary flood hazard areas along the Cahaba. In 2026 alone it created a new sewer board, settled a Riverchase drainage repair, filed with ADEM on the wastewater plant and accepted a flood mitigation grant. Here is the record.
Read 7 min
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Opened and closed near Riverchase this year
A coffee shop at Chace Lake, Alabama's first Urban Planet at the Galleria, a Yemeni-inspired restaurant on John Hawkins — and a soul food institution that served its last plate on August 16. What has changed within a short drive of Riverchase.
Read 6 min
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Hoover approved the Riverchase Crossings East deal. HomeSense is the anchor.
The city adopted the development agreement for Riverchase Crossings East on August 10, filling roughly 37,793 square feet of empty retail on Montgomery Highway — including the old Big Lots — with what would be Alabama's first HomeSense.
Read 6 min
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