The Heart of Auburn has been broken.
Thursday, Jan. 3 bulldozers began demolition of the Heart of Auburn Inn and Suites to make room for a commercial expansion titled "The Shoppes at the Heart of Auburn."
"Their goal was to redevelop the property in kind of a more of a downtown setting," said Matt Mosley, planner in the City of Auburn Planning Department. "With the anchor and only store coming in right now being CVS."
This addition will become the fourth CVS Pharmacy located in the surrounding area.
"Being an environmental science major, I think having four of one thing, is a waste of resources and economically inefficient," said Madison De- Haven, freshman in environmental science.
Neighboring the CVS, according to Mosley, is a proposed row of commercial, retail and entertainment buildings.
A path between the two lots will be accessible by both Gay and College St. The back two lots will remain vacant for land development in the future.
According to the city's new CompPlan 2030 this area is designated as Urban Core Three.
"Basically if you look at downtown, it is considered to be Urban Core, which is the current zoning that is in place now," Mosley said. "So you can go to tall buildings that are brought up to the street, then kind of fill the lot from lot line to lot line. So it looks like a typical downtown."
To the west on Glenn and Magnolia and areas surrounding campus is Urban Core 2 built of smaller more familyusage buildings.
"This is kind of pushing that same type of development in a much more limited way down South College Street to Samford," Mosley said. "Again it's one-to-two story buildings, in this case, still brought up to the lot line trying to promote uses that would function like a downtown environment while also functioning as services for the university."
In the new building space, DeHaven hopes they bring in a Taziki's and is thinking of the opportunities this new area can bring to the city of Auburn.
"Well, maybe there will just be a better downtown and a variety of people will have more options for their Friday night," said DeHaven, freshman in environmental science. "It could allow the music scene to flourish for once."
The property that once housed the Heart of Auburn Inn and Suites was purchased by Orange Development Inc., a company based out of Birmingham.
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