Mobile, state officials break ground on new $11 million ADEM building on Broad Street

A new $11 million building consolidating state environmental management services and funded primarily through oil spill settlement funds will be constructed along a redeveloped Broad Street.

A groundbreaking for the 15,000-square-foot Alabama Department of Environmental Management field office in Mobile took place on Friday. The event kickstarted a construction project that will continue until the building’s expected completion date in May 2023.

The majority of the project, or $7.9 million, was approved by the Alabama Gulf Coast Recovery Council (AGCRC) sing settlement money from the 2010 BP oil spill. The Alabama Legislature approved an additional $3 million this year for the project.

The new building will bring under one roof about 30 ADEM staff who are currently working in two buildings almost 10 miles apartment. The new building will replace what ADEM describes as an outdated facility. It will also lessen a duplication of resources, the agency says.

“Very few, if any, places on Earth have the ecological riches of the Mobile Delta,” said ADEM Director Lance LeFleur. “ADEM has played, and will continue to play, an important role in protecting those natural assets, just as it did in responding to the oil spill. The new field office will allow our staff to do that more efficiently by having all our resources and services in one building.”

The project’s architect is Nic Gray of Watermark Design Group LLC and the contractor is Lance Wyatt of J.T. Harrison Construction Company, Inc.

LeFleur, in a news release, said the architectural rendering of the building shows a design with a connection to the region.

“The curved front will produce a changing effect as the sunlight and shadows move throughout the day,” he said. “The design seeks to reflect he dynamics of the hydrological cycle.”

The building’s location is also notable, as it’s being constructed on Broad Street. The street, which wraps around downtown Mobile, has been undergoing a multi-year and $20 million-plus reconstruction that includes the replacement of uneven cement pavement, the addition of pedestrian and bicycle-friendly paths, and other features.

The Broad Street project began in 2019 and is expected to be completed by the fall of 2023. It is primarily being funded through a $16 million federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant the city received in 2016.

“We are pleased to be locating here and participating in Mobile’s major redevelopment of Broad Street, which is the main link between the city and the important planned airport expansion,” LeFleur said, referring to the forthcoming construction of a new commercial airport terminal at the Brookley Aeroplex. “This contemporary institutional facility will help make a favorable first impressions for those flying into Mobile.”