New Park Slated For Arlington Point

The grass grows tall here and trees block your view of the bay. Members of the Alabama state port authority say this will eventually be an ideal spot to enjoy the water.

“It would be nice to have a place to put kayaks in the water here on the western shore, and there's not right now, the closest you can put in now is on the causeway,” says Port Authority Director and CEO Jimmy Lyons.

He says this project grew out of a need for more waterfront access. Arlington Point is sandwiched between the coast guard and Fort Whiting.

“The closest neighbor on the other side is the airbus engineering center and I would have to think that a lot of the engineers might want to come down here and their lunch some days,” says Lyons.

At first glance this looks like any overgrown field ready for development. It used to be an old fuel depot.

“The fuel tanks are long gone, the pipes have been abandoned and cleaned we have done a very thorough environmental investigation and there's very little remaining environmental work that needs to be done,” says Lyons.

Half of the project is devoted to creating new wetlands. Planting native species helps create the required environmental offset for the Mobile Container Terminal. Lyons says construction on the 20 acre park could begin this fall and finish in a year.