A revised plan for the former Shades Valley Presbyterian Church site in Mountain Brook would swap 26 stacked condo flats for seven additional townhomes, a change that has Chester Road residents worried about traffic spilling onto their once-insulated street. The 3.8-acre property, now reshaped into a 10-townhome frontage along Montevallo Road backed by 13 single-family homes, is headed to the Mountain Brook City Council for a decision on amending the Hollywood Gateway Planned Unit Development.
From Stacked Flats to Townhomes
As reported by Village Living, the Montevallo Road Development Group has proposed removing the 26 stacked flats entirely and replacing them with seven more townhomes, bringing the total townhome count along Montevallo Road to 10. The Mountain Brook Planning Commission recommended the zoning change on September 8, and the proposal was expected to go before the city council on September 28 or October 12. The shift marks a significant departure from the project's earlier form, when the frontage was designed for a 3.5-story condominium building containing 24 to 26 stacked flat units alongside three townhomes, according to the Over the Mountain Journal.
The site itself carries decades of local history. Shades Valley Presbyterian Church occupied the property for about 69 years before merging in October 2022 with Southminster Presbyterian Church in Vestavia Hills, selling the 2305 Montevallo Road parcel to 2305 Montevallo Patrons, LLC with brokerage help from Graham & Company, per Bham Now. The congregation's 1953 colonial-style brick sanctuary, known for its ionic columns and landmark spire, was slated for demolition in August 2024 after 71 years as a neighborhood focal point. Shades Valley itself traces back to 1943, and it later established Southminster as a mission project in 1957, according to the church's own history.
Chester Road's Traffic Worries
Under the original design, neither the condominium building nor the 26 stacked residential units had any access to Chester Road, relying instead on Montevallo Road. The revised proposal changes that calculus by opening traffic from the townhomes onto Chester Road, a shift that residents like Jane Grant say is their central concern. Dan McCreary said the redesign would expose Chester Road to potential traffic from another 10 residences, calling the added vehicular and pedestrian traffic a major neighborhood concern, the station's report notes.
Elizabeth Coleman argued that townhomes facing Montevallo Road should not have access to Chester Road at all, while Victor Hanson III suggested the development instead mirror the existing Chester Road homes — a configuration he said would have allowed only seven or eight houses rather than the 13 now approved for the rear of the site. The proposed development carries minimum 10-square-foot lots and setback requirements similar to those on Chester Road itself, per the same account.
Possible Fixes on the Table
Dana Hazen, Mountain Brook's director of planning, building and sustainability, has suggested that a gate could be installed to limit access to Chester Road, according to the outlet. The Planning Commission has also recommended requiring developers to provide the most parking possible along Montevallo Road, with a preference for angled parking, and has floated controlled access from the development onto Chester Road as a compromise. A traffic study presented to the commission back in July 2022 had estimated that accessing the development via Chester Road would generate six to eight additional vehicle trips during peak hours, according to materials from the City of Mountain Brook.
A Walkable Gateway, Reimagined
The broader master plan, submitted by Nequette Architecture & Design and Ingram Farris LLC, was conceived as a walkable gateway into Mountain Brook Village aimed at empty-nesters seeking low-maintenance homes near the commercial core, according to city planning records. The 3.8-acre site sits roughly one block from the village's commercial center, a proximity the development's own marketing materials at A Beautiful New Gathering describe as a defining feature of the plan. The rear single-family component, known as Chester Court, includes 14 custom home sites, with completed homes starting around $2 million and individual lots listed above $1 million, underscoring the high-end nature of the project.
The church property is part of the Hollywood Boulevard Gateway project. Proceeds from the church's property sale also funded a community benefit beyond the development itself: the Shades Valley congregation donated $150,000 toward tiny cottage construction at Union Village for the Presbyterian Home for Children, per Presbyterian Home for Children. As the city council prepares to weigh in, the fate of Chester Road's access remains the unresolved question at the heart of the project's next chapter.
