The Timmerman Building could be home to a new business by the summer of 2018.
Milky Moo’s, a homemade ice cream business, is looking to lease the bottom floor of the Timmerman building. Members of the Andalusia City Council had the first reading of an ordinance setting up a lease agreement Tuesday night. The city acquired the building, also known as the First National Bank building, about Jan. 1, 2017.
Milky Moo’s operates locations in Enterprise, Ozark and Headland.
While their specialty is ice cream, the business also offers cupcakes, cakes, ice cream cakes, candies, soups, sandwiches, salads, wraps and hotdogs. Johnson said the owner of Milky Moo’s was interested in locating in Andalusia before the city acquired the property, and wanted to move here last year. However, a health issue delayed her plans.
“This is an exciting announcement,” Mayor Earl Johnson said. “We’re going to be putting a commercial business in a building that’s been sitting mostly empty for at least 30 years.”
“I’m excited about the company and what it will bring to the downtown area. It will be good business and good for our downtown development.”
Johnson said the restaurant complements what is already available downtown. The Andalusia location should open roughly in midsummer, by July 1st.
“This is a good start on the redevelopment of the downtown area. I think this business will fit in very well with our other businesses,” Johnson said.
The ordinance will likely be approved at the council’s next meeting, set for Tues., Feb. 20.
The City of Andalusia’s Relay For Life team is selling barbecue sack lunches this Friday, and they have a local “celebrity chef” preparing the food.
Billy Joe Stallworth is cooking the meat for the sandwiches.
“Normally we have around 280 or so sack lunches sold,” Sonja Godwin, a member of the city’s Relay for Life team said.
“Right now we’ve sold well over 200 lunches. There’s still a bit of last minute orders coming in, we’ve had several today.”
The team is expecting around 300 sack lunches sold.
The sack lunches will include a barbecue sandwich, sauce on the side, chips, a drink and cookies prepared by Winn Dixie.
The sack lunches are $6.
The pick-up date for the sack lunches is on Fri., Feb. 9, from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m at the Adult Activity Center.
If 10 or more are purchased Godwin said they would be able to deliver.
For more information contact the AAC at 334-222-6891.
The Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA) has awarded the Andalusia Police Department a $24,000 grant for a new communications system.
The department applied for the funding last fall, and plans to purchase a Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system for the police communications center.
Funding was announced by Gov. Kay Ivey on Friday.
This new system will enable communications officers the ability to dispatch the closest officer to a call by choosing the most available officer based on the displayed availability monitored by the CAD system, Chief Paul Hudson said. It also will shorten the response times for calls for service, and provide communications officers with important information to provide to the officers including, call history as related to location, similar incidents or active warrants for service on all calls for service dispatched by the Andalusia Police Department.
“The opportunity to provide better services to our citizens by improving response time, improving officer safety by having the ability to provide officers with call history information will be an asset to our city,” Hudson said. “I’m thankful for the award made by Gov. Ivey and look forward to continuing and improving the work that our department does to protect the lives and property of citizens and visitors through improved technology and training.”
The cities of Ozark and Union Springs, and Geneva County received similar grants.
“Our police officers and sheriff’s deputies often work in highly dangerous situations and deserve the best equipment possible while serving and protecting residents,” Ivey said. “I am happy to assist in the efforts of these law enforcement agencies as they continue to serve their communities.”
The Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs is administering the grants from funds made available by the U.S. Department of Justice. ADECA manages a wide range of programs that support law enforcement, economic development, infrastructure upgrades, recreation, energy conservation, water resources management and career development.
Andalusia Star News
Mayor Earl Johnson would like to put Mediacom on notice.
The cable and Internet company has a franchise agreement to operate in the city, but that doesn’t mean the city can’t compete with them. And if conditions don’t improve, that’s exactly what he intends for the city to do.
“For the entire time that I have been mayor, I have not received as many complaints about anything as I have received about the cable and broadband service from Mediacom,” Johnson said Tuesday during the city council’s meeting. “Whatever it is that they’re doing here, they need to make some changes.”
Mediacom acquired Andalusia TV Cable in late 2016, and has been working on the system for more than a year. Doug Frank, Mediacom group vice president for the coastal region, told The Star-News in December the company was in the process of rebuilding 100 miles of cable, and expected to be able to deploy 1-Gig service within six months.
Initially, the company maintained customers’ original Andy Cable packages, but in January, began transitioning to Mediacom packages. To deploy the new service, Mediacom is sending technicians to install new cable boxes, and in some cases, new modems, to its customers.
But customer complaints have been so loud, the mayor said, and ample broadband is so key to the ability to conduct business, the city might need to become an Internet provider for the good of local businesses.
“(Mediacom) operate(s) here because we let them,” Johnson said, referring to the franchise agreement the company has with the city. “As a city government we can’t tell them or make them do anything. But we can locate someone who is an expert on broadband and Internet who can tell us what we can do.”
Competition has always improved service, he said.
“Cities like Opelika have dealt with this problem before,” he said. “We could meet with the mayor and their technical support team and compare notes.
“This city will not grow or attract businesses and industries that we want here unless they can be assured the broadband and television services that are necessary to run a business,” he said. “A lot of businesses, if they don’t have broadband, it shuts their business down. It’s a serious thing.”
Johnson said he has met with Mediacom officials to address his concerns, but the service has not improved.
“I don’t know of anything else to do but to start asking questions and find out,” he said. “We need enough broadband to provide our people with what their needs are and we don’t have it right now. People are paying for services that they are not getting them.
“I want to see if there is something we can do,” he said. “It’s our duty to look into it.”
Johnson said he believes the city’s utilities department could easily become a broadband provider.
The South Alabama Regional Airport Authority on Tuesday agreed to enter a short-term lease with Ronnie Kearns, owner of the Kearns Group, for the airport’s twin hangar facility.
Covington County Economic Development Commission Executive Director Rick Clifton said the Kearns Group has an opportunity to do prototype upgrade work on four C130s.
“He would like to do the work here,” Clifton said, adding the aircraft belong to branches of the military.
“This could get the airport some very good exposure,” he said.
Clifton said if the prototype works, it will be installed with 174 more aircraft, and there would be a possibility that work also could be done at SARA.
“We don’t know what this could lead to,” Clifton said.
The Kearns Group has previously leased facilities at the airport, but Kearns and SARA parted company in a disagreement early last year. The debt on the twin hangars, which were built for a company that proposed C130 work here, is carried by the City of Andalusia, the City of Opp, and Covington County. The three entities, along with SARA chairman Gary Smith, have the final say on contracts.
Opp Mayor Becky Bracke attended the SARA meeting and spoke in favor of the lease.
“I’ve tried to step back and look at this as a business. What would I do if I were the one make the decision? We have nothing. No prospects out there,” she said, adding that if it doesn’t work, “What have we lost?
“If it works, there could be spinoffs,” she said. “My opinion is I would give him a chance. What do we have to lose? We don’t have anything in there right now?”
SARA board member Mike Holloway said there is a “lot to gain” by having a tenant in the hangars.
“If we don’t rent it but a day, that’s money the cities and county don’t have to pay (on the debt),” he said.
SARA board members Chuck Burgess and Donald Barton expressed reservations, but ultimately agreed to a short-term lease with a day rate of $850 per day for the entire facility, with an option of renting only half.
In other business, the board:
- Agreed to close its fire station, effective Feb. 1, when Vector Aerospace will no longer require around-the-clock firefighting capability. The station will only be closed once memorandums of understanding previously in effect with the Andalusia, Opp and Sanford fire departments are renewed.
- Agreed to extend a $350,000 line of credit with Southern Independent Bank for an additional six months. The line is currently maxed out.